


-v - . . *** 








>-% v a* ,*^a 

















MENTAL MEDICINE: 



A THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL TREATISE 



MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



BY 

EEV. W. F. EVANS, 



AUTHOR OF "MENTAL CUBE; OR INFLUENCE OF THE MIND ON THE JiODV EN 
HEALTH AND DISEASE." 



" On earth there is nothing great "but man: 
In Man there is nothing great hut Mind." 



BOSTON : 
CARTER & PETTEE, 

3 Beacon Street. 
187 S. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1872, by 

WARREN F. EVANS, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washing 



00G1 VM 



Rockwell & Churchill, PrintorB, Boston. 



P E E F A C E. 



In this volume the author has aimed to give the 
results of his study of Medical Psychology as a ther- 
apeutic agency, and the knowledge he has gained 
from many years' experience of the best methods of 
its application. He has not entered into a discus- 
sion of all the phenomena of the psychic force, but 
only those laws of its action that render it so effi- 
cient in the cure of all forms of mental and bodily 
disease. It contains the best light he could obtain, 
from every accessible source, in relation to this 
primitive and apostolic mode of healing the sick. 
The work is, in some degree, supplementary to the 
previous volume of the author on the mental aspect 
of disease and the psychological method of treat- 
ment. It contains information every one needs 

who has anything to do in the management and 

3 



iV PREFACE. 

care of the sick, and which will qualify every 
person of ordinary intelligence to be his own family 
physician. It goes forth into the world with the 
hope that it may contribute some influence towards 
reviving this divine method of healing the sick, 
now wholly abandoned by the principal religious 
and sectarian organizations of the Christian world. 
May an age of living faith and spiritual power suc- 
ceed the present reign of materialism and religious 
impotency, so that the so-called miracles of history 
may be reproduced as the common facts of our own 
age. It is to be hoped that the world will again 
witness the spectacle of the doings of men and 
women who are endued with power from on high, 
or whose natural faculties and abilities are rein- 
forced and augmented by an influence emanating 
from the Central Life and the omnipresent spiritual 
realm of existence, intelligence and causation. 
Then miracles will cease to be such, from their 
frequency, and lose the element of wonder, when 
science reveals the laws by which they are effected. 
To "minister to a mind diseased," and thus to 



PREFACE. V 

relieve and cure the multifarious forms of bodily 
disorder from the root, is the divinest work in 
which a human beinsr was ever called to en^a^e. 
May thousands of such followers of Jesus, the 
Christ, be raised up in a world of sickness and 
sorrow, pain and death, and qualified by the recep- 
tion of his spirit to perform this sublime and sacred 
function, and thus stay, in some degree, the tide of 
misery that has overflowed our morally disordered 
globe. 

As appropriate to the author's own feelings and 
to the subject he is about to discuss, he would 
adopt the language of the venerable Dr. Rush, as 
introductory to his work on the Diseases of the 
Mind : r In entering upon the subject of the 
following observations and inquiries, I feel as if I 
were about to tread upon consecrated ground. I 
am aware of its difficulty and importance, and 
I thus humbly implore that Being whose govern- 
ment extends to the thoughts of all his creatures, so 
to direct mine in this arduous undertaking, that 
nothing hurtful to my fellow-beings may fall from 



VI P RE F A C E . 

my pen, and that this work may be the means of 
lessening a portion of some of the greatest evils of 
human life." 

No. 3 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. 
Oct. 12, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Gift and Art of Healing 11 



CHAPTER II. 

Qualifications of the Psychopathic Practitioner . . .21 

CHAPTER III. 

Conditions of the Patient Favorable to a Cure . . .31 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Conscious Impressible State 41 

CHAPTER V. 

How to Induce the Impressible State 47 

CHAPTER VI. 

Medical Psychology and the Limitations to its Abuse . . 55 

7 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAGB 

Auto-Magnetism or Self-Healing 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Phreno-Magnetism and its Use in Medical Psychology . . 73 

CHAPTER IX. 

Nervous Sensitiveness and Inharmonious Influences . . 80 

CHAPTER X. 

The Duality of the Mind and Body, and the Positive and 
Negative Distinction in the Psychic and Magnetic 
Forces of the Organic n 88 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Brain, and Psychic and Nerve Centres .... 97 

CHAPTER XII. 

Effect of the Psychopathic Treatment of the Spine ar. 

Spinal Nerves 105 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Application of the Psychic Force to the Epigastrium, 

and the Nature and Cure of Nervous Diseases . .111 



CONTENTS . IX 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 

The Abdominal Muscles, and the Mechanical Displacement 

of the Internal Organs 117 



CHAPTER XV. 

Nerve Conductors and their Use in Medical Psychology . 123 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Agent in the Psychopathic Treatment and its Relation 

to the Vital Force 130 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Inanimate Objects and their Use in the Cure of Disease . 136 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

On the Law of Sympathy and its Application to the Cure of 

Mental and Bodily Disease 143 

CHAPTER XIX. 

How to Avoid Exhaustion and the Imbibing of the Diseased 

Condition of the Patient 151 

CHAPTER XX. 

Power from on High, or Spiritual Aid Necessary to Success 

in the Cure of Disease by Medical Psychology . . 1G0 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

PAGE 

Miscellaneous Directions in the Treatment of Disease, in- 
cluding the Method of a Correct Diagnosis . . . 178 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Insanity and its Psychopathic Treatment .... 189 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Remedies partly Mechanical and partly Psychopathic . .201 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mental Medicine, or the Sanative Value of the rsychic 

Force 207 






MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE GIFT AND ART OF HEALING. 

Reality of the Psychic Influence — lis Identity with the Vital 
Force — Why some have more Power to heal Disease than 
others — The Power not confined to a Few — Distinguished 
Healers — GreatraJies — George Fox — The Jewish Prophets — 
Jesus and the Apostles — In what Sense it is a Gift — How far 
an Art — Design of the Volume — Scientific Mission of the 
Present Age — Wherethe Psychopathic Method may be generally 
useful — Need of Popular Knowledge of its Nature and Laws 
— Change in the Condition of Human Nature — Modification 
of Diseases — New Remedial Agencies demanded — The Un- 
seen. 

IT is now an established fact, and has become a part 
of the positive science of the new age upon which 
humanity is entering, that one person can influence 
another person in a way usually called magnetic. The 
influence, thus imparted, is either identical with the 
vital force, or has the property of affecting its action. 
Some persons have more of this power than others, 
owing, perhaps, to their peculiar mental and physical 
organization, the ability to concentrate their mental 
energy and force upon a certain end or aim, and their 
superior strength of will. But the power to cure dis- 
ease without the administration of medicin* -im- 
ply by the psychic force imparted through the hand, is a 
11 



12 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

more common endowment than is generally supposed, 
A large proportion of both men and women, possessing 
an average share of intelligence, might become succ 
ful practitioners, with a little instruction, directing them 
how to use the powers they possess. In fact, a large 
number of persons of both sexes, in a quiet and unos- 
tentatious way, are successfully practising this apostolic 
mode of healing the sick without fee or reward, actu- 
ated solely by a benevolent desire of relieving human 
suffering, and by an irrepressible love of doing good. 
Some, by a more public career, have attracted general 
notice, and attained to fame. Such arc scattered all 
along the world's history. Such were some of the 
Jewish prophets, who cured disease by this divine 
method. The remarkable cures wrought by Valenl 
Greatrakes, which attracted the attention of the 1 
lish people, and which were investigated by the Royal 
Society, were effected by "stroking with the hands." 
George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends or 
Quakers, performed, what have been deemed miracles of 
healing, as his Journal shows. 

The cures wrought by Jesus were no miracles, or 
departures from the established order of nature, as he 
himself avers. They exhibit the action of a higher law, 
the dominion of mind over matter. Everything that is 
done is effected in harmony with some law of nature, — 
some law of mind or matter, — and has in it the relation 
of cause and effect. To understand the law by which it 
is done is to be able to do it. Hence, Jesus declares 
respecting his wonderful works, which were mostly those 
of healing the bodies and minds of the people who 
flocked to him from eveiy part of the land of the Ji 
" The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater 
works than these shall ye do, because I go to my 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 13 

Father." This is as true as any promise that his lips 
ever uttered. He commissioned and instructed his 
apostles to 4i cure all manner of disease and sickness 
among the people." The same cause will produce the 
same effect to-day. The cures effected by Gassner, a 
Swiss clergyman, who created so wide-spread an excite- 
ment in the latter half of the 18th century, and those 
wrought by Madam Saint-Amour, a Swedenborgian lady 
of rank, in France, and those performed by Herr Rich- 
tei\ in Silesia, exhibit as great therapeutic power as was 
manifested b}- Jesus eighteen hundred years ago in 
Judea. All forms of disease were, in man}< cases, \ 
instantly healed by an invisible power or influence, and 
the wonders of the apostolic age were reproduced. Not 
that these persons possessed more power to cure disease / 
than many others, but their natural gift was developed 
and cultivated by action, all their powers were con- 
secrated to a divine use and to one work, and circum- 
stances gave them notoriety. It is my opinion that hun- 
dreds and thousands of others possess equal power to 
heal disease, and, under like circumstances, would be 
equally successful. 

The power of curing disease was conferred by the 
Christ upon the Church, not as a transient circumstance, 
attending the introduction of Christianity into the 
world, but as a perpetual inheritance. It was not so 
much a gift to individuals, as an invariable attribute of 
a vital faith. The Protestant clergy, in order to excuse 
and account to the world for their spiritual impotency, 
have strenuously argued that the gift was confined to the 
chosen twelve, or to the seventy disciples, or at most to 
the first century of the Christian Age. But without any . 
limitation as to time or place, the risen Jesus affirms, 
" These signs shall follow them that believe. In my 



14 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

name they shall cast out demons ; they shall speak with 
new tongues ; they shall take up serpents, and if they 
shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; 
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall 
recover." (Mark 16 : 17, 18.) This wondrous power 
is here by a divine commission conferred upon all men 
in every age and clime, who truly believe, who ha\ 
faith whose vital root is the life of God in the soul of 
man. As William Ilowitt has well said, u If these 
things are not true, Christianity Lfl not true; if it and 
they are true, the fault ties In ourselves if we lack the 
power ; we have not vital faith, and are only half Chris- 
tians." Nine-tenths of the public life of Christ was 
spent in curing dfa t mind and body. To truly 

follow Christ is to do the same thing, moved to it by 
the same spirit of love and all-conquering faith. lie 
who does this is in the genuine apostolic succession, 
though no lordly prelate has ever laid his impotent 
hands upon his head. lie who cannot do it is only half 
a Christian minister, and that the smallest half, though 
he may have been ordained by the pope, or even St. 
Peter himself. Such men arc vainly striving, after the 
example of Gehazi, the servant of Elijah, to rail 
dead world to life, by laying upon it the staff of the 
prophet, rather than by the indwelling power of the God 
of all the prophets. 
( | The possession of this power is at the same time a 
divine gift and an art. It is a gift of God, so fai 
any one has a natural adaptation to this Christlike work, 
arising from constitutional peculiarities of mental and 
physical organization. Among the charismata, or spirit- 
ual gifts, enumerated by Paul, is found the gift of heal- 
ing, which is not something superadded to a man's nat- 
ural possessions, but is only the development of a power 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 15 

arising from a peculiarity of mental structure, by which 
an individual is naturally fitted for the work of heal- 
ing. 

It is also an art, for knowledge is power. To know 
how to do a thing is to be able to do it. He who best 
understands the laws of the psychic force in its applica- 
tion to the cure of disease, hy availing himself of that 
knowledge, and thus adapting his treatment to nature's 
immutable laws, will greatly add to his efficiency in the 
cure of all morbid conditions. The author has received 
numerous letters from all parts of the country, asking 
for instruction in the use of the gift of healing, which 
many persons have an inward consciousness of possess- 
ing. To give the necessary information in the brief 
limits of an epistolary correspondence was found im- 
practicable. It is the design of the present work to 
give, in a condensed form, a clear statement of the laws 
of Medical Psychology, so far as they relate to the cure 
of disease, and to give a few simple directions in the use 
of this wonderful healing power. There are multitudes 
of men and women who have the u gift of healing," and 
the possession of a particular gift is a divine call to use 
it. They lack only the knowledge which is necessary to 
an efficient use of the power with which they are 
endowed. We write for the benefit of this numerous 
class of persons, who, in a humble way, and unknown to 
fame, are striving to follow Jesus, and do the works he 
did } and who recognize as one of the signs of a genuine 
faith, that ** they shall lay hands upon the sick and they 
shall recover." It is a part of the scientific mission of 
the present age to disrobe the so-called miracles of 
past centuries of all their mystery, and reduce them to 
the operation of known laws, and thus render them 
credible as historical facts, and their repetition practi- 



16 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

cable at the present time. The science of human mag 
netism, which is adequate to this result, is not a mere 
plaything, designed to amuse and astonish a popular 
audience, but is one of the best gifts of God to man. 
Its intelligent employment as a curative agency will be 
fruitful in blessings to the world, in alleviating suffer- 
ing, and curing diseases of mind and body. 

There are many cases of disease, for which a physi- 
cian is employed T that might be almost instantly 
relieved, especially in their incipient stage, by a judi- 
cious psychopathic treatment administered by some 
member of the family, if they only had the needed 
instruction in the use of thi it therapeutical 

agency, which it is the design of this work to afford. 
I do not affirm, or believe, that this system of medical 
psychology will cure every form of disease, but I do 
assert what I know to be true, that dealing as it docs 
with the vital force itself, it operates more immedia! 
and efficiently in relieving pain, and restoring the lost 
harmony in the action and distribution of the organic 
forces, in which all disease consists, than any remedy 
known to medical science. And where it will not cure, 
it alwa} T s benefits and never injures the patient. 

The world is undergoing a change. AVe live in one 
of those mighty transitionary epochs of human history, 
when old things are passing away and all things are 
becoming new. We are realizing the fulfilment of the 
prophetic announcement of ages ago, that God would 
pour out his spirit upon all flesh. This divine afflatus 
is coming out of the opening and descending heavens 
upon the whole human family, quickening into life dor- 
mant faculties, and opening the organism to all invisible, 
imponderable and spiritual influences and forces. In 
the dreary ages of the past, men have been like the 






MEXTAL MEDICINE. 17 

sturdy oak, that defied the strength of the hurricane's 
blast, it was so firmly anchored in the coarse, hard soil 
of the earth, but now, like the mimosa, the}' shrink from 
the slightest touch of the finger of spirit-power. God 
and the angel world are rolling away the rock of a base 
sensuality and carnality from the sepulchre of the sleep- 
ing spirit, and, obedient to the yoice of Omnipotent 
Love, it is coming forth with spontaneous alacrity in 
the renewed powers of a risen humanity. Men every- 
where are becoming increasingly susceptible to magnetic 
and psychological impression. The selfish isolation of 
men from each other is coming to an end. Individuals, 
communities, and nations invisibly affect each other, and 
are becoming more and more bound in the same bundle 
of life. What we see in the outward world, in the 
increased facilities of intercommunication between dis- 
tant individuals and peoples by means of steam-naviga- 
tion and the electro-magnetic telegraph, is only the 
ultimation in the realm of sense of an antecedent closer 
relation and connection effected in the world of mind or 
spirit. This increased susceptibility and impressibility 
to magnetic and psychic influences, which mankind now 
everywhere exhibit, which renders them so delicately 
sensitive to every breath of the spirit that blows upon 
them from above or beneath, must necessarily be 
attended with more or less disorder, mental and physi- 
cal, but is certainly educating humanity to a higher 
range of life and activity. It is giving rise to a new 
a of diseases, that baffle the skill of the old prac- 
titioners, and the medical science of past ages can only 
look upon the patient in dumb amazement and ril 
impotency. It is a fact, patent to every one who will 
open his eyes to observe, that disease is now. far more 
than formerly, mental and nervous in its origin and 



18 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

characteristics. The old works on Therapeutics and 
Materia Medica are now of little more use in this altered 
condition of human nature than is a last year's almanac 
in navigation. This increased sensitiveness to psychic 
and spiritual influences, which characterizes and under- 
lies the diseases of the present age, must be met by 
more subtle remedies, on a different application of the 
principle of Hahnemann, that like cures like. A new 
school of medicine is slowly growing up to meet this 
want. The Psychopathic physician, discarding all drugs 
and chemical agencies, communicates the Bubtl 
netic and spiritual forces, to nerve up and tone up the 
organism with a higher vitality, quickening dormant 
functions and reconstructing impaired ones. He inocu- 
lates the patient with a sanative contagion, and impreg- 
nates the system with a new and improved vital force, 
that gives birth to health and harmony. The use of 
these spiritual dynamic forces, even in the hands of the 
ignorant and imperfectly educated practitioner, is 
attended with a success that man}' a learned physician 
has sought in vain, and sometimes perform^ cures, in 
the presence of which the so-called, diplomatized medical 
science of the day stands in dumb amazement. These 
will be more frequent in the progress and spread of a 
higher knowledge of the once mysterious vital principle, 
and the imponderable forces that impel the organic 
machinery. While all diseases, through the emanative 
sphere that surrounds a patient, are to a certain extent 
contagious, through the law of sympathy, so life, health, 
and happiness are equally communicative. Our connec- 
tion with the universal and ever-present spiritual world 
is a vital one, as Swedenborg taught more than a cen- 
tury ago ; and as the unbarred heavens come into closer 
proximity with earthly conditions they will bring down 



ME XT A L MEDICINE. 19 

to mankind a higher and happier physical and mental 
existence, to constitute the basis of the advanced 
spiritual life which is being gradually unfolded, as the 
influence of the light and heat of da} r and the gentle 
dews of night unroll the bud into the full-blown flower. 
Jesus directed and empowered his disciples, as they 
entered into any city, " to heal the sick that were 
therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is 
come nigh unto you." 

THE UNSEEN. 

11 About us float the odorous gales 
That kiss the eternal hills of day : 
Oh that the chilling fog would lift 
And show our waiting *feet the way ! 

" We grope about us — seeing not 

The waiting ones outside our sight, 
Whose viewless hands are clasping ours, 
To lead us up the shining height ! 

11 We may not know the cords we touch, 
That, glancing 'long the electric line, 
Flash back upon our sodden lives 
Some hints of peace and love divine. 

11 As clef ted mountains sometimes hide 
Behind the vapor's purpling drift, 
Till, pierced by Sol's directer ray, 
Their girdling shadows slowly lift : 

11 So we grope on, 'neath fogs of doubt, 
Our hearts in solemn silence bowed; 
While God's eternal verities 
Are hidden from us by a cloud 

14 When, lo ! a kindling glory throws 
A sudden splendor o'er our way, 
And, slowly lifting, lo, appear 
The whitely shining hills of day I 



20 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" And yet not oft — nor yet to all, 

These prophecies and hints are given ; 
Only as signals, sparsely set, 
Along the battlements of heaven. 

u Yet some day, every waiting soul 

Shall see the mists slow rolling back, 

And, freed from clogs of earth and sin, 

Walk calmly up the shining track ! n 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PSYCHOPATHIC PRACTI- 
TIONER. 

Importance of his Mental States — The Higher Faculties — Use- 
fulness of Medical Science — Great Physical Strength not Nec- 
essary — A Child will cure a Man — The Necessity of Faith — 
Whence derived — Sanative Virtue of Love — The Model Healer 
— Power from above — The Light of Life. 

THE person who would successfully use the psycho- 
pathic method in the cure of disease should be one 
of high mental and moral character, and actuated solely 
or mainly by the love of doing good, that he may be 
worthy of the trust reposed in him, and that the inter- 
ests committed to his charge may be safe in his hands. 
A person's psychic influence will partake of his predom- 
inant phrenological organs, and will be tinged with the 
quality of his ruling loves. He infects his patients with 
his own habitual mental states. He impregnates the 
subject with the sphere of his own life, — his modes of 
thought and feeling. It is the higher faculties that 
possess the power of imparting a sanative virtue and 
influence. The nearer one approaches the character of 
Jesus, and the more he is in sympathetic union with 
him, the more power he will possess to " heal all man- 
ner of sickness and disease among the people." He 
- everybody's best friend. The prevailing mental 
states of the practitioner are of far more importance 
than his physical force, or even the state of his health. 
The cure of disease by this method is effected more b 



22 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

psychological or spiritual force, than by any material 
influence. Hence this mode of treating disease I call 
Psychopathy, or the mental-cure. It is the triumph of 
mind over matter, of the spiritual over the material. 
And the patient's own mind has much more to do with it 
than many suppose. 

He ought also to have an adequate knowledge of the 
anatomy and physiology of man, especially of the 
nervous system. He should understand the nature and 
symptoms of disease, the relation of the mind to the 
body, and the influence of the one upon the other. He 
should be especially skilled in the knowledge of the 
causes of disease, for every morbid condition of the 
body is an effect, of which something is the cause. This 
anterior cause must be removed before the effect will 
cease. There is no system of medical practice, that 
requires aprofounder knowledge of human nature, both in 
its physical and spiritual departments, than the psycho- 
logical method of healing. But all do not possess this, 
and much can be done without it. Many physicians of 
all schools enter upon an extensive practice of the heal- 
ing art, with 011I3- a small capital of brains. 

It has been demonstrated by experiment that in order 
to the production of the highest psychopathic and 
curative effect, great phrysical strength is not necessary 
in the physician. Madam Hauffe, the Seeress of Pre- 
vorst, had a wonderful therapeutic influence, though her- 
self a confirmed and hopeless invalid. It is rather the 
difference in the magnetic condition of the operator and 
subject. In producing the magnetic sleep, a child will 
sometimes do it, when the subject is a strong man, 
sooner than another man of equal physical force could 
do it. The greater the difference in the psychic or mag- 
netic condition, the more marked will be the effect. 



M E X T A L M E D I C I X E . 23 

How often has a child cured a headache in a man, by 
sing his hands caressingly over his brain and through 
his hair ! The highest and most immediate results are 
witnessed where the one is as positive as the other is 
negative. 

He who would cure diseases of mind and body, by 
psychie and spiritual force, must have faith in God. 
When the disciples of Jesus found themselves unable to 
cure a certain case of insanity and obsession, on inquir- 
ing the cause of their inefficiency, he replied, " Because 
of your unbelief." (Matt. 17:20.) In another place 
he directed them, as a qualification for executing their 
commission, to heal all manner of sickness and disease 
among the people, to have faith in God, or, as it is ren- 
dered in the margin, with literal exactness, " Have the 
faith of God," — a faith divinely imparted. Such a 
faith is not onl} r one of the essential conditions of a 
strong volition, but connects the soul with the Central 
Life, and augments the power of every faculty of the 
human mind. It puts the soul in vital conjunction with 
the divine omnipotence. The Christian world has never 
fully understood the power of a living faith. Jesus does 
not exaggerate or overstate its force, when he affirms, 
11 If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him 
that believeth." (Mark 9 : 23.) It reinforces human 
weakness with the divine creative power. Without it, 
whatever qualifications we may possess, " there shall be 
no might in thine hand." (Deut. 28: 32.) It inv< 
the soul with a serene consciousness of power, and there 
can be no substitute for the eternal calmness that closes 
round the mind of him who dwells in God. 

The psychopathic practitioner must have confidence 
in his own ability. He must be a man of Abrahamio 
I. He can do nothing without it. To doubt- is 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 

fail. A want of faith is weakness. This confidence 
ought not to be an inordinate self-esteem, which is 
repugnant to every healthy moral nature, but may arise 
from a calm consciousness of a knowledge of the laws 
of human nature, and of the power with which such 
knowledge invests the mind of man. It may spring 
from a deep conviction of the purity of our motives, 
and the aid of invisible powers. It must also have its 
root in love, — a love so great, so divine, as to be will- 
ing to lay down life itself, that others might live, and to 
bear the burdens and share the pains of others. Here 
is the secret of the success of Jesus. His maxim 
was, " The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. " 
Love is the inmost vital principle of man. Jt is life 
itself He who has the highest and divinest degree of 
it will be the most successful in healing the sick by the 
application of the principles of medical psychology. It 
is a spark of the divine life itself. A bad man may 
administer drugs, but an individual radically false, self- 
ish, and morally rotten, cannot cure disease by this 
divine method. The loss of psychological power, aris- 
ing from a course of <morai and intellectual disorder, is 
one of the divinely appointed safeguards of this impor- 
tant agent against its being perverted to purposes of 
evil. The sublime calmness of an evenly balanced 
mind, the possession of a self-respect resulting from 
intellectual and moral elevation, perfect self-control, and 
presence of mind, the power of concentrating the mental 
and will-force, a stubborn faith that is ready to grapple 
with seeming impossibilities, a facility in adapting one's 
self to the condition and wants of all persons, a pro- 
found knowledge of human nature, an ardent love of 
doing good, and a spirit of kindness that condescv 
to the poor and longs to lift up its hands and call down 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 25 

a blessing upon every human being, are the essential 
elements in the character of the successful psychopathic 
practitioner. 

To attain the highest success in the treatment of dis- 
eases of mind and body, we must be in sympathetic 
conjunction with Christ and the realm of life above, and 
be endued with power from on high. The spirit world, 
the home of the blessed, and the seat of all causation, is 
not far off in some starry world, in a distance so remote 
that no telescope can empower the natural eye to pierce 
its dimness. The truly spiritual man is in close prox- 
imity and affinity with the society of the angel bands. 
He has sought and found the ever-present kingdom of 
the heavens. He dwells on the border-land between the 
two worlds, where they so touch and unite, that whore 
earth ends and heaven begins cannot be clearly defined. 
Death to such is an empty name, a sound without a 
meaning. They live eternal life. They live and move 
in the antechamber of the celestial habitation. And so 
may we. 

11 I cannot hide that some have striven, 
Achieving calm, to whom was given 
The joy that mixes man with heaven 

" Who, rowing hard against the stream, 
Saw golden gates of Eden gleam, 
And did not dream it was a dream. 

M But looking upward, fall of grace, 
They prayed, and from a happy place, 
God's glory smote them on the face ; 

Then heard, by secret transport led, 
Even in the charnels of the dead, 
The murmur of the fountain-h- 



26 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" They seemed to hear a heavenly Friend, 
And through thick veils to apprehend 
A labor working to an end. 

11 Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, 
Vast images in glimmering dawn. 
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn." 

He who would impart a sanative spiritual virtue to 
others, minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the 
heart a rooted sorrow, and perform the highest, holi 
and divinest function of human nature, in relieving dis- 
eases of mind and body, and by his voluntary activity 
and silent influence communicate health, harmony, and 
happiness, must himself be in sympathy with the foun- 
tain of life and light, not as an occasional transport, by 
which a soul is carried out of its natural element, hut 
as an habitual and confirmed state. As Thoma 
Kempis remarks, " lie who would imparl peace tooth 
must have peacefulness himself." lie must breathe the 
atmosphere of the divine and heavenly, and dwell in the 
suburbs of the celestial city. He must attain to an 
interior state where the inner ear can catch the echo of 
thought and life in the morning-land. He must receive 
thence that he may impart, and ask 011I3- that he may 
have wherewith to give. I do not mean that we should 
come to open communion with individual spirits, which 
may not be desirable until we are unfolded to that 
degree of the inner life that shall render it natural and 
safe, when the latent powers of the interior manhood can 
no longer be confined in its chrj T salis condition, and 
asserts its freedom, but I mean a fellowship and con- 
scious communication with the general sphere of life 
and intelligence in the ever-present heavens. We must 
be admissive of the light of life. In speaking of this 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 27 

universal sphere of light and love, under the expressive 
designation of the Logos or Word, as it is the secret 
animating principle of all language, it is said, " In it is 
life, and the life is the light of men." This living light 
of the heavens, received by us, ultimates itself in 
thought and emotion, and these in words, so far as our 
external language is able to embody and express them. 
In the other world, language is only the communication 
of the living thoughts of one mind to another. In cer? 
tain states of mental abstraction, we imay come into a 
condition where the ideas of the higher range of existence 
and intelligence may consciously flow into us, as the 
flower imbibes the light and heat of the morning sun. 
Some persons, in whom the religious and spiritual nature 
has been highly unfolded, and the inner manhood has 
attained to freedom from material restraint and limi- 
tation, have thus received life and light from the upper 
world, the soul imbibing the thoughts and feelings of 
the angelic realms. Such was that most remarkable 
man, Emanuel Swedenborg. And how large a share of 
our best thoughts and most hallowed desires and emo- 
tions come to us from this source, we know not, but 
doubtless far more than a sensuous world is prepared to 
believe or admit. On the language of the world of 
spirit, in harmony with which we receive light from 
above, Frederic Von Schlegel, in his profound treatise 
on the Philosophy of Life and Philosophy of Language, 
thus remarks : " If, as w r e cannot but suppose, a com- 
munication does take place among those spiritual beings, 
who in intelligence are preferred to man, then must the 
immediate speech of these spirits be very different from 
our half-sensuous, half-rational, half-earthly, half-heavenly 
language of nature and humanity. For even as spirit- 
ual, it cannot but be immediate, — never employing tig- 



28 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

lire and those grammatical forms which human lan- 
guage first analyzes to form again out of them new and 
fresh compounds. According to the two properties 
which constitute the essence of mind (geist), it can only 
be a communication, a transmission, an awakening or 
immission of thought — some wholly definite thought — 
by the will, or else the communicating, exciting, and 
producing b} r the thought of some equally definite voli- 
tion. It may be that something of this, or at 1 
something not absolutely dissimilar, occurs in human 
operations. It is possible that this immedial 
of mind. ' and invisible principle of life, - 

a rare and superior clement. — is contained also in 
human language, and, as ii veiled in the outer 

body, which, however, becomes visible only in t! 

of a luminous and lofty eloquence, in which i-- displ: 
the magic force of language and of a ruling and com- 
manding thought." 

Swedcnborg in his numerous works, in which he 
unfolds the laws that govern all spirit life, often r« 

to this immediate lar <f mind, the i 

or thought-speaking. But we are our pints in 

all that ; :r existence, and with our inner 

nature adjusted in harmony with all that is divine and 
heavenly, may receive the inflowing of life and 1 
from God and the angel-world. And with the - 
blissfully fixed on its divine centre, we may peacefully 
revolve around it in an ever-widening orbit of activity 
and usefulness. What the religious world most n< 
to-day is not the knowledge of the historic Jesus, 
faultless creed, but a vital union with the and 

ascended Christ, who has gone up on high and r 
gifts for men ; and most of all we need to r 
him the quickening influence of the baptism of the holy 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 29 



spirit and of fire. This makes the recipient of it " a 
burning and shining light," and a divine power among 
men. 



" Onward he moves, disease and death retire, 
And murmuring demons hate him, but admire." 

Without this, the Church, with all its solemn pomp of 
externality, is like painted fire, which looks well, but 
emits no living light and heat. Its creed, however 
orthodox, is like moonbeams reflected from polar ice ; 
and all its organized activities are but the spasmodic 
movements of a galvanized corpse ; and all its members, 
however wealthy and respectable, are to the truly spirit- 
ual e}-e like the dry and bleaching bones of the valley in the 
vision of the prophet. The baptism of the spirit, or the 
reception of the sphere of life and light from God and 
the angel-world, augments and stimulates all the dor- 
mant powers of our inner nature, and heightens the vital 
activity of every department of our complex being. It 
quickens the intellect by warming the heart, clears the 
mental vision from thickest films of sensuality and car- 
nality, and on the sightless spiritual orbs, veiled in the 
natural man and oppressed with night, it pours celestial 
day. It endues the subject of it " with power from on 
high," and in the sphere of benevolent and Christian 
activity makes him an embodiment and instrument of a 
fraction of God's omnipotent love ; and in a world of 
sickness and sorrow, pain and death, where the spiritual 
atmosphere is tremulous with the heart-throbbings of 
despair, and every breeze is laden and heavy with the 
echoes of sighing grief, he moves on in his beneficent 
career, unostentatiously accomplishing the divinest 
result, like the noiseless but potent forces of nature. 



30 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 



His outward life is but the manifestation in act and deed 
of " the stirrings of deep divinity within." In a miti- 
gated sense, he can say: "The spirit of the Lord God 
is upon me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to 
preach good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me to 
bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the 
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord ; to 
comfort all that mourn ; to give them beauty for ashes, 
the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise 
for the spirit of heaviness. ,, (Isa. 61 : 1-3.) 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 81 



CHAPTER III. 

CONDITIONS OF THE PATIENT FAVORABLE TO A 

CURE. 

Faith in the Remedial Agency — How far Necessary — Knowl- 
edge better than Faith — Desire to get Well — Consent of WiU 
— No Repugnance to Psychopathy — Passivity Necessary — 
How Medical Psychology sometimes Operates to Cure Disease — 
There should be no Fear of It — Mental Influence in Disease — 
Testimony of Dr. Forbes Winslow — M. Rev exile- Parise — 
Schiller — Dr. Sweetser — Feuchiersleben. 

THERE are certain conditions of the patient, which, 
if not absolutely necessary to a cure, are extremely 
favorable to such a result. Among these mental states 
may be mentioned some degree of faith in the efficiency 
of the psychopathic method, and the ability of the prac- 
titioner to afford relief and effect a cure. The stronger 
this faith is, the greater the probability of success. The 
effect of faith and hope are always salutary. But so far 
as my own observation and experience go, in the treat- 
ment of the sick, these mental conditions are no more 
necessary to a cure than they are in any system of med- 
ication. Faith in the remedial agent, whatever it may 
be, always increases its efficiency. But the psycho- 
pathic physician has the advantage of all other prac- 
titioners in his ability to control the mental states of 
his patients. This is of more importance than ail the 
drugs that ever were administered. This is coming to 
be the secret opinion of the most intelligent physicians 



32 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

of the day. Where faith and hope do not exist in the 
patient, it must be the first business of the physician to 
induce those mental conditions. How it may be done, 
we shall show hereafter. 

An intelligent appreciation of the laws of what is 
called magnetism, from the want of a proper nam< 
far better than a blind faith. Knowledge is the highest 
form of faith. It is the perfection of faith, re I 

believe two and two are four. It is always desirabl 
make the patient understand the reason for everything 
you do for him. The whole sobj 
of all mystery. It should be understood, at the on: 
that you propose to work no miracle by magical and 
mysterious agencies, but to effect a cure in harmony 
with nature's laws. The subject should be explained 
and brought within the comprehension of the invalid. 
It may take time to do this; but it is time well sj 
The most salutary faith a patient can pos B bound- 

less confidence in the laws of nature, in accordance with 
which the divine power ou propose to afford 

him help. 

We may further remark, that it is essential that the 
patient have a desire to get well. *This desire maybe 
inordinate and amount to a morbid anxiety and impa- 
tience, which is an unfavorable state. There may 
and often is, a restless haste to be cured. Such persons 
cannot wait, the} r must be cured in the twinkling of an 
eye. The first step toward a cure, by any o of 

medicine, would be to remove this diseased mental si 
and prescribe those excellent remedies in chronic 
ease, time and patience. But a desire to get well, if it 
be not inordinate, is essential to a cure. It is one of 
the laws of our being, that desire for a thing renders 
us receptive of it. 



MENTAL ME DIC IX K. 33 

There ought not only to be a desire of recovery, but a 
willingness to get well in this way. There should be no 
repugnance to Medical Psychology as a curative agency. 
If a person is not sick enough to be icillincj to get well 
by a course of psj'cliopathic treatment, the remedy will 
act with greatly diminished efficiency. There are cer- 
tain persons, who, for some unaccountable reason, have 
a deep-seated antipathy, and an intense horror of the 
psychopathic treatment, and all its phenomena. To see 
a person in the somnambulic state makes them unhappy, 
and they have a repugnance to it. They can give no 
reason for it, nor raise any solid objection to it. Such 
persons often remark that they had rather die than get 
well by the use of so intangible a remedy. They ought 
to have their choice. They had better take drugs, if 
they prefer them, — the more nauseous the better. Let 
them be vomited, purged, depleted, salivated, or sub- 
jected to any other effect of allopathic medication. 

There must be a mutual understanding and confi- 
dence between the physician and the patient. The 
latter must deliver himself up passively to the former, 
who ought to be wort Ivy of the confidence reposed in 
him. A state of passivity is of far more importance 
than faith, or any peculiarity of temperament. I have 
never been able to see that much importance was to be 
attached to the temperament of the subject. It may be 
true that some temperaments are more easily influenced 
by the psychic force than others ; but I have never yet 
found a person of any temperament, who could not be 
affected more or less, both mentally and physically, by 
it, provided he passively and without reserve surren- 
dered himself to the action of this invisible and potent 
agent. 

The patient ought also to be sufficiently enlightened 



34 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

with regard to the nature and effects of Medical 
Pychology as not to be alarmed at any symptoms that 
may arise. Sometimes, though quite rarely, the most 
favorable effects may be produced, when a person feels 
worse after the psychopathic treatment. It increases the 
effort of nature to overcome the morbid state, assists 
the reaction of the vital force against the unnatural 
condition of things in the system, and consequently 
occasions an increased disturbance in the bodily func- 
tions, hurries on the natural crisis of the disease, and 
brings the spiritual evils and abnormal mental states, 
underlying the disordered physiological action of the 
organic .structure, to a culmination. The result of all 
this is, the patient feels IfOrse when lie is actually 
ter. His sensations are no sure guide to a correct judg- 
ment and diagnosis of his real condition. This effect 
is, as before remarked, quite rare, and should i 
alarm in either the physician or patient. The QSOal 
effect of an application of Medical Psychology is an 
immediate relief of all painful sensations and uncom- 
fortable symptoms. If one has taken into the stomach 
some sickening and poisonou> drag, under the direction 
of the family physician, even if he is drugged to the 
very verge of death itself, he is not frightened at the 
result. He patiently endures the effects, because they 
are what he expected. If this sanative spiritual agent 
occasionally hurries on the natural crisis of the di> 
and the patient temporarily feels worse, let no one be 
alarmed. Under the direction of unerring nature, it 
will come to a desirable consummation. Where the 
proper mental conditions exist in the patient, the psycho- 
pathic method of cure, under the direction of an intelli- 
gent and judicious physician, will be found one of the 






MENTAL MEDICINE. 35 

most efficient remedies for nearly every form of chronic 
disease within the whole realm of nature. 

In all painful conditions of the system the patient 
must be instructed and empowered to divert his thoughts 
from himself and his state. It is a physiological axiom 
that there is no sensation, at least no perception of 
sensation, without attention or directed consciousness 
to the part. It is a prescription that comes to all the 
diseased and unhappy from the wisdom of the upper 
realm of mind, that we can never get well until we stop 
thinking we are sick. To break up the conGrmed habit 
of thinking that we are diseased, and to cease dwelling. 
in thought or word, upon our unhappy state, will remove 
the spiritual cause of our disease, and the bodily malady 
will disappear like darkness before the rising sun. 

The patient must learn the importance of checking 
the morbid inclination to speak of his troubles and his 
diseased condition. It is a law of our nature that to 
express a feeling iu words intensifies it. There is often 
witnessed in nervous invalids a selfish tendency to dwell 
upon their sufferings, to expatiate with mournful elo- 
quence upon their pains, and to exaggerate the miseries 
of their situation. This must be checked. As Dr. 
Reid has truly remarked, "By endeavoring, from benev- 
olent motives, to smother the expression of our sor- 
rows, we often mitigate their inward force. If we can- 
not imbibe the spirit, it is often profitable, as well as 
good-natured hypocrisy, to put on the appearance of 
cheerful l 

" 'By seeming gay, we grow to whai i'" 

The mental state of the patient is not a matter of 
secondary importance. The morbid state of mind, in 



36 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

most chronic invalids, is the underlying cause of their 
pathological condition, and demands the first attention 
of the physician. This is frankly acknowledged by 
many distinguished practitioners of medicine, but at the 
same time they make no practical use of the truth. Dr. 
Forbes Winslow remarks : " The physician is daily 
called upon, in the exercise of his profession, to witness 
the powerful effects of mental emotion upon the material 
fabric. He recognizes the fact, although he may be 
unable to explain its rationale. He perceives that mental 
causes induce disease, destroy life, retard n and 

often interfere with the i il operation of the most 

potent remedial means exhibited for the alleviation and 
cure of bodily and Buffering. Although such 

influences are admitted to play an important part, either 
for good or for evil, I do not conceive that, as ph 
cians, we have sufficient appreciation of tin im- 

portance." (Journal of Psychological Al< Vol. vii., 

p. 107.) 

In his work on Moral Therapeutics, M. Reveill6-Parise 
more fully admits the influence of the mind on the body 
in the generation of di " If a patient dies, we 

open his body, rummage among the viscera, and scruti- 
nize most narrowly all the organs and tissues, in the hope 
of discovering lesions of some sort or another ; there is 
not a small vessel, membrane, cavity, or follicle, which is 
not attentively examined, — the color, the weight, the 
thickness, the volume, the alteration, — nothing 
the eye of the studious anatomist. He handles, touches, 
smells, and looks at everything ; then he draws his con- 
clusions one way or another. One thing only escapes 
his attention ; that is, he is looking at merely organic 
effects, forgetting all the while that he must mount 
higher up to discover their causes. These organic 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 37 

alterations arc observed, perhaps, in the body of a per- 
son who has suffered deeply from mental distress and 
anxiety ; these have been the energetic cause of his 
decay, but they cannot be discovered in the laboratory 
or amphitheatre. Many physicians of extensive experi- 
ence are destitute of the ability of searching out the 
mental causes of disease ; they cannot read the book of 
the heart, and }-et it is in this book that are inscribed, 
day by day. and hour by hour, all the griefs, and all the 
miseries, and all the vanities, and all the fears, and all 
the joys, and all the hopes of man, and in which will be 
found the most active and incessant principle of that 
frightful series of organic changes which constitute 
pathology. This is quite true, — whenever the equilib- 
rium of our mental nature is long or very seriously dis- 
turbed, we may rest assured that our animal functions 
will suffer. Many a disease is the contre-coup, so to 
speak, of a strong moral emotion ; the mischief may 
not be apparent at the time, but its germ will be never- 
theless inevitably laid." 

All this is most certainly true, and commends itself 
with self-evidencing force to the consciousness of every 
invalid, especialh' those of a nervous type of disease. I 
know of no work in the whole range of medical science 
which gives due prominence to the influence of the mind 
over the nervous system in causing disease. The 
treatise of Whytt on the nervous system makes the 
nearest approach to it, but foils short of the mark. Yet 
it is a truth of great practical value, that will in the 
future be fully recognized, and its recognition I 
sentially modify the practice of medicine. We can 
in the language of Schiller, " A physician whose horizon 
is bounded by an historical knowledge of the human 
machine, and who can distinguish terminologically and 



38 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

locally the c >arser wheels of this intellectual clock-work, 
may be, perhaps, idolized by the mob ; but he will never 
raise the Hippocratic art above the narrow sphere of a 
mere bread-earning craft." 

It is remarked by Dr. William Sweetser, in his excel- 
lent work on Mental Hygiene, that " the influence of the 
intellect and the passions upon the health and endurance 
of the human organization has been but imperfectly un- 
derstood and appreciated in its character and importance 
by mankind at large. Few, we believe, have formed any 
adequate estimate of the sum of bodily ills which have 
their source in the mind. Those of the medical pro- 
fession even, concentrating their attention upon the 
physical, are too prone to neglect the mental causes of 
disease; and thus may patients be subjected to the harsh- 
est medicines of the pharmacopoeia, the true origin of 
whose malady is some inward sorrow, which a moral 
balm alone can reach. " 

The spiritual nature of man is the governing, controll- 
ing principle in his outward organism, and in its varying 
states is the cause of the body's health or malady. 
Feuchtersleben, in his profound work on the Principles of 
Medical Psychology, in speaking of the influence of the 
mind on the body, says : *- Even the material nature of 
man is not wholly material; his very organization is 
calculated for his higher destination ; and it may be af- 
firmed, that not only the philosopher, but the naturalist, 
if he would duly understand the physical nature of man, 
must be strongly impressed with this truth. Body and 
mind are most intimately blended in every part of the 
structure of the living individual ; and as the disorders 
of the mind are often removed by pharmaceutical 
remedies, so, on the other hand, the diseases of the body 
as frequently require the aid of the psychological physi- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 39 

cian. In disorders of the nerves especially, the physi- 
cian can often effect nothing, if he do not in the first 
place direct his treatment to the mind. The numerous 
varying symptoms which, under the name of spasms, act 
so conspicuous a part in pathology, and unhappily a still 
more conspicuous part in real life, are often removed most 
successfully and effectually by judiciously directing, con- 
trolling, and taking advantage of the state of the mind ; 
and how few disorders there are of any organic sj^stem 
in which the nerves do not at least symptomatically 
suffer. We see, therefore, how extensive is the applica- 
tion of psychical methods of cure throughout the whole 
domain of the healing art." {Medical Psychology, p. 9.) 
The mind is never agitated by any strong affection or 
emotion, without a sensible change immediately ensuing 
in someone or more of the vital phenomena, and which, 
according to its nature, or the circumstances under which 
it occurs, may be either morbid or sanative in its effects. 
All inharmonious ps}xhological influences in the social 
relations and surroundings of an invalid, and the dis- 
orderly influences of the ever-present world of spirits, 
intensify his sufferings and retard the process of his re- 
covery. I have had man}' patients laboring under the 
most serious nervous disturbance, amounting to an 
almost positive insanity , arising solely from their extreme 
susceptibility to the unseen influence of a low order of 
spiritual intelligences. It is a fruitful source of mental 
and nervous disorders. I am confirmed in the troth of 
the opinion of Swedenborg. whose open intercourse with 
the spirit-world for a period of more than a quarter of w 
century, qualified him to judge, that communion with in- 
dividual spirits is attended witli peril to both body and 
soul, unless we are first protected by union with .!< 
the Christ. To save men from all disorderly mental and 



40 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

spiritual influence constituted bis divine mission to the 
world, and a work he still delights to perform, and to 
empower his disciples to do. A conscious and perma- 
nent union with him is at the same time our highest at- 
tainable spiritual state, and our protection from t!u k pres- 
ence and influx of spirits that wouhl otherwise can^ 
loss of mental equilibrium, and a corresponding disturb- 
ance of the bodily functions. In the enjoyment of the 
calm happiness of unbroken fellowship with him, and 
vitally united to him as the branch to the vine, and B 
tered by his all-eurroanding ice and love, "the 

gates of hell shall not prevail again 

THE MANIFESTATJ JESUS. 

"His robe was white i if snow 

When through the air descendii 
I Baw the clouds beneath him melt, 
Ami rainbows o'er him bending! 

And then a voice no, not a voire 

A deep and calm i\ veiling 

Came through me, lik r strain 

O'er tranquil waters rteali 

"And ever since that countenance 

Is on my pathway shin, 
A sun from out a higher iky, 

Whose light knows no declining; 
All day it falls upon my road, 

To keep my feet from straying", 
And when at night I lay me down, 

I fall asleep while praying." 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CONSCIOUS IMPRESSIBLE STATE. 

Mistake of the Early Practitioners — Difficulty of inducing the 
Sleep — A Subject may be fully Magnetized without it — Consti- 
tutional Sensitiveness — The Test of it — The Impressible State 
described — Physiological Influence of Mental Force — The 
Power of Suggestion — Therapeutic Value of the Impressible 
State — Permanency of the Effects, 

THE early practitioners, from Mesnier downward, 
labored under an error in supposing that the som- 
nambulic sleep was necessary to the efficiency of mag- 
netism as a curative agency. In this way much time 
was wasted arid labor lost, as many patients cannot be 
put into the sleep without long and repeated efforts, and 
on some the sleep cannot be induced at all. It often re- 
quires as many as twenty sittings, and even more, before 
some patients will exhibit the phenomena of the com- 
plete somnambulic state. Those who arc the most suc- 
cessful in the cure of disease seldom or never aim to pro- 
duce the state of coma or insensibility. In fact, it is 
now well established that a subject may be perfectly 
magnetized, and will exhibit all the prominent phenomena 
of the magnetic state, as sympathy, thought-reading and 
clairvoyance, without becoming unconscious in the least, 
but continuing in a condition of full wakefulness. If 
the sleep occurs, as it sometimes will in \ ible 

subjects, before the physician is aware of it, it is not to be 



42 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

deemed an obstacle to a cure. It must be turned to a good 
account. It is better that they be allowed to remain in it 
from fifteen to thirty minutes before they are brought out 
of it. Give them the same treatment as you would if 
they were awake. 

It is only necessary that the patient be thrown into the 
impressible conscious state. The sleep is useful only so far 
as it increases the susceptibility of the subject to your 
psychological influence. If the patient be one who is 
quite susceptible to the magnetic influence, which is the 
case with a considerable portion of chronic invalids, you 
Can proceed at oner to give him treatment without any 
preliminary process. If you have doubt of this, you 
can test his sensitiveness, if it is deemed desirable. 
Pass the hand or the points of the Angers, with- 
out contact, but very near, down the arm and over 
the palms of the hand of the patient, at the si 
time directing your mental force by inte izing 

upon the parts, and, if susceptible, he will become con- 
scious of a peculiar ion, either that of a cool 
breeze, which is the most common, or a sense of warmth, 
or a prickling feeling, similar to that in the foot when it 
is going to sleep as it is called, or there will be a slight 
numbness. The more sensitive the subject of the ex- 
periment, the more vivid will be these sensations. 

A diseased condition of the organism is often of itself 
a susceptible state. Deleutze, who never magnetized any 
but the sick, supposed that perfect health was an in 
ceptible condition. This was a conclusion not warranted, 
and is known now to be an error, yet there is no doubt 
the presence of a diseased condition renders one incr 
ingly sensitive to all psychological influences, which is a 
hint of nature poining to magnetism as the divine 
method of cure. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 43 

It may be laid down as an axiom that, in order to the 
production of the highest curative results, the state of 
unconscious coma is by no means an essential prerequi- 
site, but only a conscious impressible state, in which the 
will of the operator and the simplest suggestion from 
aim becomes the highest law of the patient's being, and 
a spiritual force adequate to control all his sensations, 
Lis voluntary muscular motions, the action of the invol- 
untary organic functions, and his mental states. In this 
condition the mind and will of the physician, acting in 
harmony with the yielding and accordant mind and will 
of the patient, triumph over the diseased condition of the 
latter. Every disease, if of a nature, and in suclT a 
stage, as to admit of a cure, surrenders to this psycho- 
logical force as to its lawful sovereign. 

It has long been known that a person can be thrown 
into a state where all his voluntary motions are under 
the control of another. If the hand be closed, and he 
be told that he cannot open it, he finds it impossible to 
do so, though all the time perfectly wakeful and con- 
scious. He cannot do it, simply because he believes he 
cannot, and does not, and perhaps cannot, will it, or, to 
use a common form of expression of subjects in this 
state, he does not wish to do it. He has unresistingly 
delivered himself to the control of another. His will 
and affections consent to this bondage. If he be told 
that he cannot raise his hand to his head, he finds 
that he cannot, though he may seem to struggle hard to 
accomplish it. The effort is wholly external, while 
internally he does not desire it or will it. ll* the hand 
be placed upon the head, and you suggest to him that he 
cannot remove it, he finds himself without the power to 
do it, though he may appear to struggle hard to do so, 
until the magnetizcr pronounces the words, kt All right," 



44 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

or, " Now you can ; M then he does it with ease. In the 
same way, he cannot walk across the room, nor even 
speak his own name, if the despotic will of the person 
into whose care the subject has delivered himself suggest 
that he cannot. All his sensations, as well as his mus- 
cular movements, are under the control of the mag- 
netizer. He can be made to feel warm or cold, hungry 
or thirsty, to see, hear, smell. r feel anythi 

and to feel sick or well. He can be thrown into :uiy 
mental state you may wish to Induce upon him. You 
can make him feel joyful or Bad, humble or proud, d< 
tional or the contrary, hopeful or despairing, benevolent 
or: selfish. It is also a fact of great value, that the si 
suggestion of the operator, or 

vocal esq . will art with eqv . when the stcti 

fully est" 

Here seems to be a power that is adequate to cure 
disease, and when BO used finds its legitimate employ- 
ment. I have applied it to that purpose, and to that 
alone, never using it for the exhibition of any of the 
other phenomena. The psychopathic physician, whom 
God and the angel-world have called to the sublime 
mission of healing the sick and relieving human suffer- 
ing, should never degrade it, and abuse it, by putting it 
to airy inferior use. Some of the public exhibitions of 
it, under the name of psychology or biology, have been 
simply ridiculous, and calculated to fill every sensible 
mind with disgust. It has had much to do in bringing 
it into disrepute, and repelled the scientific physician 
from its employment as a remedial agency. But so won- 
derful a power may find its legitimate sphere of use. 
There cannot be the shadow of a doubt of its efficiency 
and value as a therapeutic agency. If it be a fact, that 
in this form of the magnetic state you can gain an 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 45 

almost absolute control over all the voluntary muscular 
movements, and even the sensations of the patient, why 
may you not just as well and as certainly affect the 
physiological action of the involuntary organs? Such 
I know, by hundreds of successful experiments, contin- 
ued through many years, to be the truth. In the case 
of a susceptible patient, your simple suggestion, made in 
the silent depth of your own consciousness, or ultimated 
in vocal language, becomes a word of power, and can 
increase or diminish the action of the heart, change the 
character of the respiration, affect, in any desirable way, 
the functional movements of the stomach, the liver, the 
kidneys, and the intestinal canal. You can affect in a 
moment the action of the perspiratoiy glands, and throw 
the patient into a gentle sweat. You can control the 
vital action of any organ of the bod}', render any part 
insensible to pain, and calm the excited nerves, and, in 
a word, produce the specific effects of an} r medicine that 
was ever administered, without any of the usual reactive 
morbid results. If this is true of this wonderful agent, — 
and it is among the certainties that it is true, — what 
medicine under heaven can be found which is so immediate 
and potent in its effects? Here we witness the sover- 
eignty of mind over matter. For it is the divine order 
and the law of creation, that the spiritual should govern 
the material — that the whole realm of matter should be 
under the dominion of the world of spirit. 

But the question will naturally arise, Can these effects 
be made permanent? It seems to be a general imp 
sion among physicians and others, who may admit the 
immediate beneficial effects of the psychopathic t; 
ment, that they are transient, and will only \ 
few days at most. If this be so, what then? Wb< 
physician gives morphine or bromide ol potassium 



46 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

gelserainum, or chloral hydrate, to a nervous invalid, 
does he expect that its influence will last fore\ 
What course then does he take when the efl the 

medicine are seen to be temporary, and have all disap- 
peared? After a proper interval, he administers another 
dose. So let us follow up the psychopathic treatment, 
until the organism of the patient undergo lical 

and permanent change, and a complete revolution is 
effected in the organic functions. If. in our first att 
upon the disease, we gain any advantage, follow it up 
until the invader is expelled. But experiment has 
proved that the effects which are produced upon 
patient while in the conscious impressible Btate, he may 
be made to carryover into his normal condition. If 
the operator and the patient suppose that the effects will 
be transient, they will be BOj for the law hold- l 
here, if nowhere else, " Be ii unto thee according to thy 
faith.'' If they both combine to will and believe that 
they will be permanent, such will be the result. In the 

impressible state, the patient comes under the action of 
the law of faith, the great psychological remedy in the 
Gospel system, the importance of which even the Chris- 
tian world has never fully appreciated. But the li' 
Jesus, the Christ, has affixed to it the divine seal, and 
demonstrated to all future ages that it is one of the 
highest laws of our being and the divine mode of cure. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 47 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW TO INDUCE THE IMPRESSIBLE STATE. 

The First Aim of the Physician — The State easily Induced — 
Freedom from Disturbing Influences — Position of the Patient 

— Reasons for it — Effect of Gazing — Fascination — Use of 
the Hands — State of the Cerebrum in the Somnambulic Con- 
dition — The Cerebellum — Control of the Voluntary and In- 
voluntary Functions — Influence of the Patienfs Mind — Sen- 
sitiveness to Psychological Force — The Origin of Disease — 

Woi'd of Power — Influence of Suggestion in the Normal State 

— Spiritual Forces attd Material Effects — Ever Present. 

IF the effects described in the preceding chapter can 
be produced upon the sensitive subject, it becomes a 
question of great practical value, How can the impres- 
sible conscious state be induced, in which the mental force 
of the physician, combined with that of the invalid, can 
affect the physiological action of every organ of the 
body ? Where it is not the normal state of the patient, 
it must be the first aim of the physician to produce it, 
to some extent at least, as his success will depend upon 
the degree in which it exists, and little can be done 
without it. In certain cases both time and patienco 
may be requisite. It is highly probable that, under the 
proper conditions, all persons may be brought into it. 
To a greater extent than is generally believed it i> a 
self-induced condition, and the physician is only an 
Lstant in its production. The state is one of perfect 
passivity, intense mental concentration and abstraction. 



48 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

There should be perfect stillness, and freedom from 
everything that can distract the mind. All conversation 
must be suspended. There must be a mutual co-oper- 
ation of the physician and patient. The latter must be 
entirely passive and yield himself wholly to the former. 
Let the subject assume an easy position, so that all the 
voluntary muscles may be relaxed. Though it is not 
absolutely necessaiy, yet it is important, that he sit with 
his back toward the north, and in a somewhat reclining 
posture. There is no doubt that the magnetism of the 
earth has a polar distribution. It [a equally certain that 
the odyllic emanation of the terrestrial magnet has 
a polar arrangement. It iras the opinion of Reicben- 
bach, with which some other scientific men concur, that 
the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australia arc the 
odylic light of the north and south poles. Ti 
some persons so extremely sensitive to the magnetic 
influence that they cannot sleep at night unless the 
head lies toward the north. ^>o as to bring the body into 
harmony with the poles of the earth. In any other 
position they are uneasy, wakeful, and 3. Chil- 

dren sometimes in their sleep turn around spontaneously 
without waking. 1 am satisfied that this is not the 
effect of imagination, as many persons have di 
it from their own experience, who could give n 
why it was so, and who knew nothing of magnetism. A 
bar of iron, set up at an angle of forty-five d< with 

one end leaning toward the north, will become tempo- 
rarily magnetic. The lower end will be found, on tesl 
it, to be the north pole, and the upper end the south 
pole. The patient should be caused, in harmony with 
this law, to sit or recline with the back toward the north. 
This will increase his susceptibility to the psychic influ- 
ence, and tend to invert the magnetic poles of the bo 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 49 

The brain, which is normally positive, or the north pole 
of the body, will become negative, and its magnetism 
will flow downward toward the feet. 

The assistant must aim to produce only the conscious 
impressible state, as this is all that is necessary to the 
cure of disease. The patient may be informed of your 
intention or not, as your judgment may decide to be 
expedient. Let the subject gaze intently at some object 
held a little above and before the eyes, so as to strain 
the eye upward while looking at it. It is not a matter 
of much importance what the object is, as it is not prob- 
able that it has any direct electric action, as some have 
supposed, but only assists the patient to concentrate his 
mind and throw him into the passive state. It may be 
held in the hand, in which case it becomes charged with 
your psychic and odyllic force ; or it may be suspended 
from the wall of the room. I use for the purpose a 
small silver cross. A coin, or the knob of a pencil-case, 
will answer equally well. At the same time that the 
subject is looking steadily at this, let the assistant gaze 
intensely at the same or at the patient's forehead. This 
will increase the effect, as the magnetism of the e 
through which the mind acts or goes forth, is of equal 
efficiency with that of the hand. Fascination or charm- 
ing is affected by gazing at the object. Animals of 
prey, as the cat, fix their victims by gazing at them 
before they spring upon them. You see this in the cat 
when catching a bird or a fly. Avail yourself of this 
hint. Concentrate your whole mental force into the act of 
gazing. Only a few minutes, scarcely ever more than 
five, will be necessary to produce the impressible St 
in which the patient will become sensitive to your 
cbological force. will act as a controlling 

power. 



50 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

After gazing for a few minutes, in the manner above 
described, gently place your hands, one on the forebrain 
and the other on the cerebellum, or the back of the head 
and neck, at the same time willing the vital force of the 
cerebrum to retreat backward to the cerebellum. This 
is the physiological condition of the brain in the som- 
nambulic state and in ordinary sleep. The cerebrum, 
or large brain, is the organ of the mind in a state of 
wakefulness, and of our voluntary life and activity. 
The cerebellum is the organ of our involuntary life. 
Gazing with the eyes partly shut, or with a sort of 
double squint, at an object elevated about forty-five 
degrees above the eyes, tends to invert and suspend the 
action of the lame brain, and throw it into a qo 
state. When this is accomplished, you will Bnd that 
your control of the patient is Completely established. 
What you say to him is the law of his being. You hold 
the key of his very life. You can render him insensible 
to pain in any part, by a simple suggestion, and when 
he is restored to the normal state the diseased part may 
be left insensible. You can allay inflammation in any 
organ, or infuse spiritual force and strength into any 
weakened part. In a word, you can produce any 
desired effect. If the control is not completely estab- 
lished, the process to which the patient has submit" 
will greatly increase his susceptibility to the sanative 
influence of the psychopathic treatment. 

In this state, he must be made to forget his disease. 
When persons are fully magnetized and thrown into the 
somnambulic state, they can be made to remember or to 
forget anything which occurs in that state. If you will 
them to remember, they will remember. If you tell 
them to forget anything or everything, they will bo 
unable to recollect. They will be like one who is con- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 51 

scious of having dreamed in his sleep, but cannct recall 
bis dream. So tbe patient must be made to forget bis 
disease, and to abstract bis mind from it. And yotir 
success in curing him will depend, to a great extent, 
upon your skill in managing and controlling bis mind. 
In all systems of medicine the mind bas much to do in 
tbe cure of disease. Most diseases originate in dis- 
turbed mental and spiritual states. In tbe impressible 
state the mind acts with increased force, — with ten- 
fold energy. In an instant, it can create disease and 
pa iu in any part, or it can render any part insensible to 
pain and create health. Your simple word, acting in 
concert with the consenting will of the subject, seems to 
be endowed with creative force. It becomes an image 
of the eternal Logos, tbe Word that was in the begin- 
ning with God, and was God, and by which all things 
were created. You speak, and it is done. You com- 
mand, and it stands fast. So potential a sanative 
agency is not found in the whole realm of nature. 

Since many persons, and perhaps all, may be brought 
into the impressible conscious state, while only a few are 
good subjects for the exhibition of tbe somnambulic 
sleep, we see the great value of this process in the cure 
of disease. For it is certain that the sleep alone is of 
little or no importance. Its value depends upon tbe 
impressibility of the patient while in the sleep, and is 
measured by the degree in which that susceptibility 
exists. When we see a person in a state so sensitive 
to the action of the mind of another, though perfectly 
conscious of everything that transpires around him, and 
to all outward appearance in his natural state of wake- 
fulness, that by a simple suggestion, an arm may be ren- 
dered insensible to the otherwise severest pain, and the 
action of any organ may be affected in any desired way, 



52 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

we cannot for a moment doubt the practical remedial 
value of such a power. And it is no honor to a phy- 
sician's head or heart, who obstinatel}' remains ignorant 
of so potent a therapeutic agent, and who utterly dis- 
cards its use. The time is not far distant when its 
value will be understood and generally recognized, and 
the laws by which it is governed will be studied. No 
course of medical education will be deemed complete 
without it. The time is at hand when it will be as dis- 
creditable for a physician to be ignorant of the science 
of Medical Psychology, as it would now be for him to be 
without a knowledge of physiology and chemistry. 

The force of suggestion, as it is called by the late Dr. i 
Gregory, in the natural slate, has long been known. 
Many interesting facts illustrating its inlluence are 
familiar to all. The simple remark, made by another, 
that an invalid looks worse and appears to be running 
down, will have its effect in helping along bis decline. 
And the suggestion that a patient looks better, and 
appears to be improving, will have its influence in the 
direction of health. But in the impressible state sug- 
gestion acts with a hundred-fold force. In this lies its 
great value as a curative agency. The cures effected by 
it are accomplished by spiritual forces, which are none 
the less potential for being invisible. All causes are 
unseen. The whole material universe is the region of 
effects ; the spiritual world is the realm of causation. 
If I raise my hand to my head, or strike a blow with my 
arm, the visible motion is an effect, but my mind and 
will are the unseen and spiritual force that is the cause. 
But it is equally true that all causes are spiritual and 
invisible. In our ordinary state, our senses are limited 
to the cognizance of visible effects, while the unseen 
forces are concealed from view. In that state of mental 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 53 

exaltation and freedom from material thraldom, which 
has received the name of clairvoyance, and also in the 
spiritual world, to which our inner life belongs, u the 
invisible appears in sight," and the mind is elevated to 
the perception of the hidden causes of things. The 
mind is taken behind the curtain, and sees the now 
invisible forces that move the sublime machinery of 
nature, and which are the secret spring of its life and 
activity. Psychopathy owes much of its efficiency as a 
remedial agent to its relationship to the invisible and 
potent active forces of the universe, and especially those 
that impel the organic machinery of the human body. 
It brings the mind into its divinely appointed relation to 
matter as its controlling, governing principle, and man 
takes his proper place at the head of creation, as its 
lawful sovereign. 

EVER PRESENT. 

<: The sun of yesterday is set — 
Eorever set to Time and me ; 
Yet of its warmth, and of its light, 
Something I feel and something see. 

14 The flower of yesterday is not — 

Its faded leaves are scattered wide; 
Yet of its perfume do I breathe, 
Still does its beauty stir my pride. 

14 The friend of yesterday is dead — 
On yonder hill his grave doth lie ; 
Yet there are moments when I feel 
His presence, as of old, draw nigh. 

44 A part of what has been remains ; 
The essences of what is gone 
Are ever present to my sense ; 
Though left, I am not left forlorn. 



54 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 



" In thought, in feeling, and in love, 

Things do not perish, though they pa-< ; 
The form is shattered to the eye, 
But only broken is the glass. 



11 Sun, friend, and flower have each become 
A part of my immortal part ; 
They are not lost, but evermore 

Shine, live, and bloom within my li art* 1 



MENTAL MEDICINE . 55 



CHAPTER VI. 

MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIMITATIONS TO 
ITS ABUSE 

Drugs may be Abused — Illustrations — Chloroform — Sjwcial 
Guards against the Perversion of the Agent in Psychopathy — 
The State Voluntary — An Evil Design a Loss of Power — 
Quickens the Intuitions — Difficulty of Deception — Relative 
Strength of Good and Evil — Exaltation of the Moral Sense — 
Magnetism as a Reformative Influence — Refinement of the 
Character — Quotation from Dr. Gregory — Influence of Mind 
071 Mind — Swedenborg's Theory of Disease — A Medical Psy- 
cholgy Practicable — Dr. C. F. Taylor — Bichat on the Influ- 
ence of the Emotions on Organic Life. 

IT may be asked, " Is it proper for one person to sul>- 
ject himself so completely to the control of another ? 
Could not such a power be perverted to purposes of 
evil?" 

I am convinced that the state described in the previous 
chapter has been generally misunderstood. It is not so 
much the absolute control of one person by some myste- 
rious power in another, as it is a restoration of the subject 
to self-control, and the complete dominion of the higher 
over the lower nature in man, which is the divine order 
of human existence. In most invalids the sceptre has 
been wrested from the sovereign mind, and by a dis- 
orderly revolution usurped by the body and the external 
spiritual nature. In the psychopathic treatment we aim 
to restore the dethroned dynasty of the mind, and rein- 
state the spiritual powers in their lawful sovereignty. 



56 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

The practitioners of Medical Psychology, if tney under- 
stand their proper function and use, only assist the in- 
valid to gain this desirable end. It is not so much their 
aim to make an ostentatious display of their own psj T - 
chological powers, as to emancipate and bring into 
activity the imprisoned and dormant forces of the 
patient's own mind. Their mental and will force is only 
auxiliary to that of his. They assist to break his chains, 
and end the unnatural bondage of his higher to his lower 
nature, and of the internal to the external. As the body 
without the spirit is dead, the soul, with its godlike 
powers, is the divinely appointed monarch of the whole 
physiological domain. The physician's mind is an ally 
of that of the invalid; this is his appropriate offl 

I am not aware that there is any greater confidence 
necessary to be placed in the psychopathic physician 
than must be reposed in the ordinary practitioner of 
medicine. It might be equally proper to inquire if the 
poisonous drugs, employed as remedies in disease, could 
not be easily abused? An over-dose of strychnia, or 
belladonna, or veratrum, would be attended with fatal 
results. It would be easy to give a man morphine 
enough, not merely to quiet his pain, but to extinguish 
his life. This ha3 been done, both by accident and de- 
sign. Serious charges have been made by patients of 
evil treatment at the hands of dentists, and other doctors, 
while the victims were unconscious, under the influence of 
anaesthetic agents. But, whether true or false, they con- 
stitute no valid objection against their legitimate em- 
ployment. Chloroform may be used to render the subject 
of a surgical operation insensible to pain, which is its 
proper use, or it may be employed to aid in robbery and 
plunder. It is a universal law that everything good 
may be perverted to an evil use. But the power by which 



MENTAL MEDICINE 57 

one mind appears to control the mental manifestations 
and physical functions of another seems to have been, 
in an especial manner, guarded, by the Author of nature, 
against abuse. In the first place, the surrender of the 
subject passively to the influence of the physician is en- 
tirely voluntary, and the continuance of his ps}^chologi- 
cal control is at any and every moment at the consent of 
the patient. It can be thrown off at any time, and in a 
moment, if the subject sees reason to do so. If anything 
occurs demanding it, he can assert his freedom, and end 
his bondage at once, which is always more apparent 
than real. The state is as voluntary in its continuance 
as in its commencement. 

Again, it is not only impossible to acquire control over 
a patient without his consent, but no one can gain, by 
mere psychic force, a complete ascendency over another 
person for an evil purpose. The evil design and the pre- 
dominant action of the lower propensities, in one base 
enough to attempt it, render him negative, and deprive 
him of power to magnetize at all, especially one in whom 
the higher intellectual and moral nature is predominant. 
Even if he should succeed in inducing the impressible 
state in any degree, it quickens the intuitive perceptions 
of the patient, and his design is detected at once. He is 
placing his intended victim in an exalted intellectual 
position, where deception becomes impossible. No per- 
son who is not already confirmed in the love of evil can 
be ps} T chologically controlled for airy improper object. 
No one who was not already corrupt was ever corrupted 
by it. A state of moral and intellectual elevation is 
always psychologically superior to a lower spiritual con- 
dition. Evil may be overcome with good, for this is 1 ho 
divine order. But goodness is more than a match for 
depravity in all its forms. 



58 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

Again, no one at all acquainted with the phenomena 
of what is called the magnetic state can have failed to 
notice, as one of its most obvious effects, that it greatly 
quickens the moral sensibilities of the patient. Its influ- 
ence here is of equal if not of greater value than its 
physiological effects. It has its high moral uses, when 
properly understood and employed, as a reformatory and 
restorative agency, as well as in the cure of disease. A 
person no sooner enters the state than he experience 
marked exaltation of his whole intellectual and moral 
nature. Individuals having the reputation of being 
morally depraved seem to be elevated by it to a higher 
spiritual level, and make an approach to the saintly 
character. If we were capable of trying to persuade 
the magnetized person to a bad action, or to consent to 
any evil practice whatever, wo should soon discover that 
his sense of moral obligation has been quickened to a 
degree not exhibited by the same person in the normal 
state. Sometimes, and usually, the countenance becomes 
more refined in its expression, and the tone of the v 
is changed, indicating externally the higher tone of 
moral feeling. They seem ardently to love truth, and it 
is well-nigh impossible to make them say what they 
deem an untruth. They may be deceived, but they will 
not lie. All the moral powers seem equally exalted in 
their action. As Dr. Gregory remarks : " Their whole 
manner seems to undergo a refinement, which, in the 
higher stages of the magnetic state, reaches a most 
striking point, insomuch that we see, as it were, before 
us, persons of a much more elevated character than the 
same individuals seem to be when awake. It would 
seem as if the lower animal propensities were laid to 
rest, while the intellect and higher sentiments shone 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 59 

forth with a lustre that is undiminished by aught that is 
mean or common." 

Though in the psychopathic treatment we never aim 
to produce the state of coma, or the complete magnetic 
condition, but only the impressible conscious state, } r et 
we affirm that similar moral and spiritual effects result 
from it. We do not seek to gain dominion over an 
invalid, but to restore him to true freedom, the govern- 
ment of himself in its fullest sense. We do not know 
but that, in common with everything else, it may in some 
degree be abused, but we affirm that God has hedged it 
round with such protective limitations and laws as to 
render its abuse more difficult than almost any other 
agency. 

It is an established fact, as well demonstrated as any 
principle in the philosophy of mind, that every person is 
influenced by the presence of others, and persons of 
heightened nervous sensibility in a marked degree. 
Mind acts on mind, as certainly as all matter in the 
universe is connected by the law of gravitation. There 
is great reality in this invisible but often potent spiritual 
influence, going forth with the emanating sphere of our 
inner nature. It is in consequence of this that two 
silent persons find themselves occupied with the same 
line of thought at the same time, and that we often have 
an indefinable perception, more or less vivid, of the near 
approach of some intimate acquaintance and friend. By 
the same law we imbibe, in spite of all our volitions, the 
prevailing feelings of those who are around us. In the 

•hopathic treatment of mental and physical disord< 
we accept this inevitable fact of mutual i: ' and 

only aim to place the patient in a condition in which I 
law is intensified in its operation, and more 1 in 

• sneficent results. 



60 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

In harmony with this law of the action of mind on 
mind, invalids, especialty those of great nervous im- 
pressibility, become subject to the disturbing influence 
of disorderly spirits, which aggravates their morbid con- 
dition. Swedenborg taught a century ago that disease 
has a correspondence with disordered mind in the other 
realm of being and a spiritual origin. (Arcana Celestia, 
5711-5727.) This is not recognized in the modern 
materialistic systems of pathological science, but is a 
prominent feature in the medical system of the New 
Testament, and was reoognized Bfl true by the Groat 
Physician. To cure disease and to cast out demons, or 
to release the patient from ■ disorderly psychological 
influence and control, are in the Gospels equivalent 
expressions. Certain di as chorea, paralysis, and 

epilepsy, are attributed to a spiritual origin; but tb 
peculiar nervous and cerebral disorders can with no, 
more show of reason be ascribed to this cause than many 
others to which mankind are subject. If this is true. — 
and the progressive medical science of the New A 
which has come to the dawn is beginning cautiously to 
admit it, — then there can be such a thing as a genuine 
and efficient system of Medical Psychology, for we are 
told, in the spiritual philosophy of the Scandinavian 
Seer, that every change in our mental and spiritual 
status modifies our relation to and connection with the 
intelligences, good or evil, of the other sphere of life. 
The mental condition of a patient must therefore be a 
matter of no secondary importance, both as it concerns 
his connection with the world of spirits and its influence, 
but also in its immediate effect upon the organic system 
and its dynamic forces. The influence of the mind upon 
the body, for good or ill, is far more immediate and 



MENTAL MEDICINE, 61 

marked than that of any chemical combinations that can 
be administered. 

On this important but too often neglected subject, Dr. 
C. F. Taylor, in his Theory and Practice of the Move- 
ment Cure, remarks : " The special influence of the 
mind and will upon the general bodily nutrition is daily 
manifested and acknowledged by every physician. 
Each mental manifestation has its ultimation somewhere 
in the bodily organism, its natural language of position 
and motion peculiar to itself, thus affecting of course the 
nutrition of the muscular tissue employed in maintain- 
ing that position, but when the mental states are of a 
disordered and depressing character, they occasion more 
or less disturbance of the functions and their physiologi- 
cal processes." 

Bichat, for many years a reigning authority in physi- 
ololgy, speaks of the positive and immediate effects of 
the emotions and passions upon the organic system. 
He says : " Strict observation proves to us that the 
parts subservient to the internal functions are constantly 
affected by them, and are ever determined according to 
the state in which they may be. The effect of every 
kind of passion is to produce some change, some alter- 
ation in organic life. Anger accelerates the circulation, 
and increases, often in an incommensurable proportion, 
the effort of the heart ; it is on the force, the rapidity of 
the course of the blood that it maintains its influence. 
Joy affects the circulation also, but without producing 
so sensible a change ; it develops its phenomena in 
greater plentitude, accelerates it gently, and determines 
it toward the surface. Fear acts in an inverse ratio; it 
is characterized by a feebleness in the whole vascular 
system, — a feebleness which, preventing the arrival of the 
blood to the capillaries, produces that general paleness, 



62 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

which is observed in the body, and particularly in the 
face. The effect of sadness and trouble is somewhat 
similar. 

" Respiration has a no less immediate dependence on the 
passions ; those suffocations, that oppression, the sudden 
effect of profound grief, do they not indicate some 
remarkable change, some sudden alteration in the 
lungs? In the long catalogue of chronic diseases, or of 
acute affections, the sad attribute of the pulmonary sys- 
tem, are we not often obliged to trace the different pas- 
sions of the patient to discover the principle of his dis- 
ease?" In another chapter he shows the influence of 
the mental states upon the voluntary and involuntary 
muscular system. (Physiological Researches upon Life 
and Death, pp. 45, 46.) 

All this proves that if it be found practicable to con- 
trol or influence the mental manifestations of an invalid, 
there can be a Medical Psychology. For as both gen- 
eral and local effects are produced by the variations of 
the mental states, so these by the psychopathic physi- 
cian may be directed to the accomplishment of special 
purposes, and thus exhibit the action of mental medicine. 
There is a pathology of the mind as well as of the body, 
and these sustain to each other a correspondent or 
causal relation. The one is prior, the other posterior. 
The mental disturbance is the hidden cause of the bod- 
ily malady, which is only an effect. A true medical 
system must carry its curative agencies into the realm 
of causation. One of the improvements of modern 
medical science is found in its more thorough search into 
the causes of disease. This is turning the attention in 
the right direction in order to the discovery of the most 
efficient curative agencies and appliances. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 63 



CHAPTER VII. 

AUTO-MAGNETISM; OR, SELF-HEALING. 

Self-magnetization Practicable — Professional Seers — Sponta- 
neous Somnambulism — The Essential Thing — How to Induct 
the State — Passes Unnecessary — Method of Mr. Braid — How 
the Condition may be Self-induced — Oriental Method — Natu- 
ral Sleep — Directions to be followed i?i Auto-magnetism — 
How to become Mentally Perceptive — Transference of the 
Senses — Psychometry — Ph ilosophy of Self-healing — Sus- 
ceptibility of the Body to Mental Influences — How to Relieve 
yourself of Pain — Also of Disease — How to make a Weakened 
Organ Strong — The Way to Increase Vital Action — How to 
change our Mental States — Mental Contrasts, 

IF any one cannot find a person in whom he has suffi- 
cient confidence to entrust himself to his care in the 
interior impressible state, or, for any reason, a good assist- 
ant is not at hand, and no foreign aid is available, he 
may be taught how to induce it in himself. Self-magnet- 
ization, with proper instruction, is easily practised. 
The patient's own mind has always much to do in pro- 
ducing the impressible state, and even the sleep. Thou- 
sands of persons, without any assistance from others, 
throw themselves into the somnambulic condition of the 
brain. It is witnessed every day, and in all parts of the 
country. We have seen hundreds of persons who could 
induce upon themselves the conscious magnetic state in 
a few minutes. Some can go into it almost instantly, 
and with some it has become well-nigh a normal and 



64 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

permanent condition. Many professional clairvoyants 
throw themselves into a state of artificial somnambulism 
in a minute, and bring themselves out of it at pleasure. 
This proves that the state is under the control of the 
will, and may be self-induced, if we acquire a knowledge 
of its nature and the laws governing it. The frequent 
occurrence of natural or spontaneous somnambulism, 
which is identical with the magnetic sleep, proves that 
it arises from some power or cause residing within the 
system of the subject. If so, it is not unreasonable 
suppose, that, like ordinary Bleep, it may, by following 
the right course, be voluntarily Induced. The more it 
is practised, the easier it becomes. Anyone ran readily 
put himself into the impressible COftttiot which is 

all that is requisite to the practice of self-heal 

Let it be remembered that the essential thing, in the 
magnetic or impressible condition, is the quiescence of 
ilie large brain, and the suspension of its vital activity. 
When this is the case, the consciousness, and all the 
mental functions of thought and sensation, are performed 
by the cerebellum, or little brain, which is the organ of 
the involuntary life. This becomes the organ by which 
we think, will, and act. It is a state of extreme sensi- 
tiveness to mental impressions, whether arising from 
within ourselves or from others. But how can this 
change be effected, and this transference of the vital 
force from one department of the cerebral structure to 
the other, be accomplished? Mr. Braid, of Manchester, 
England, a successful and distinguished practitioner of 
magnetism, under the name of hypnotism, appears to 
have been among the first who doubted the necessity of 
any influence foreign to the patient, in order to induce 
the magnetic state, with all its characteristic phenomena. 
It has been found that gazing steadily at an object, held 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 65 

a little above the eyes, and in front of the upper part of 
the forehead, will induce the stale, without the use of 
the prescribed passes that have continued to be used 
from the time of Mesmer downward. By gazing in this 
strained position, necessitating the rolling up of the eye, 
the action of the cerebrum is soon suspended, and the 
passive impressible state, which is only an introverted 
condition of the mind, is induced. This position of the 
eye would effect the same, without gazing at anything, 
but it might be more difficult for some in this way to 
control the attention. Now all this one can do alone, 
although I am not prepared to say that the presence and 
influence of a good assistant might not facilitate the 
process, especially before one has become accustomed to 
it. The method of inducing interior perception, long 
practised by the magicians of the East, was by gazing at 
an ink-spot. Steadily looking at some small object or 
figure on the ceiling of the bedroom, will induce sleep, 
when a person is inclined to wakefulness. This I have 
often tried with success. The sleep in this case may be 
partly somnambulic, but is extremely tranquil and refresh- 
ing. The late Dr. Gregory gives the same testimony, 
from his own experience, regarding it. 

As previously directed, in the instructions given re- 
specting the induction of the interior sensitive state by 
another, let the patient assume an easy position, 
and be quiet and passive. A recumbent posture is 
a good one. Then direct the attention to some object, 
so situated as to require the eyes to be somewhat elevated 
in order to see it. Abstract the attention from every- 
thing else, and gaze steadily at it, with the eyes partly 
closed, for a few moments. As soon as the eyes feel a 
tendency to close entirely, and the room seems dark, or 
the vision blurred and obscure, shut them at once. 



66 MENTAL MEDICINE . 

Continue to gaze mentally at the same object, after the 
eyes are closed, and }'ou will find that you can see it 
nearly as well as before. This is an interior vision, and 
the dawning of spiritual perception or vision independ- 
ent of the external organs of sight. Continue perfectly 
passive and quiet. You are now in the state of sleep- 
waking, and on the boundary of both worlds. It is a 
condition of mental exaltation, of quickened perceptions, 
and great psychological sensitiveness. If it Lfl your wish 
to become mentally perceptive, direct your thoughts to 
some distant and familiar object or person, or to some 
place where you would h>ve to be. You will perceive 
objects with the interior certainly and as really 

as you ever saw them with the outward organ. You 
will perceive not only what you have seen before, but 
what now exists, though you never be Tore saw it. The 
accuracy of this you may be able to test, if you desire it. 
I have done it many times, and found it as reliabl 
our ordinary vision. While in this you can, by 

an effort of will, transfer the interior sense m to 

any distance, — even to another continent. For this 
wonderful power is not subject to the limitations of time 
or space. It is not imagination merely, — it is a real 
interior or spiritual perception. The power we call 
imagination may be, and without doubt often is, an 
inward seeing. All the senses may act independently 
of their material organs, and be transferred to any 
distance. By fixing the attention upon the organ of 
hearing, and listening, you can sometimes hear what 
persons, many miles away, are saying. The sound i3 
distinctly heard, though not with the outward ear. In 
fact, incredible as it may appear, their very thoughts 
become audible. This has been called clairaudu 
The same is true of the sense of smell, and even taste. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 67 

It is only the mind asserting its freedom from material 
restraint. A little practice, and a due share of perse- 
verance, will render all this easy, and you will be able to 
enter upon this state without any preliminary process of 
gazing. Some, undoubtedly, will succeed better than 
others ; but no one need fail entirely. 

While in this state, if you turn your attention to any 
persons at a distance, or near by you, by closely watch- 
ing your sensations, you will find that their states, 
bodily and mental, will affect you. If they are sad, you 
will feel it. If they have a pain, } t ou will be affected 
with it by sympathy, in the same place, and in a per- 
ceptible degree. By holding in your hand an autograph 
letter from a person, many miles away, } t ou will be 
influenced by his states, and will have an indescribable 
perception also of him and his surroundings, and even 
his past history and character. This is sympathetic 
clairvo} T ance or psychometry. By means of it you will 
be able after a while to tell the condition of your absent 
friends and others, though they may be thousands of 
miles distant. In this state all the senses are reduced 
to a unity, — an indefinable inward perceptivity. 

You are now in the impressible state. The body and 
all its organs are extremely sensitive to mental influ- 
ences, either from yourself or others. Your disease will 
be found, to a great extent, under your own control. 
Your silent suggestion will now be a spiritual force that 
will influence the physiological action of the various 
organs. If you imagine a pain in any part, you will feel 
it more or less, according to the degree of your sensi- 
tiveness. If your head aches, suggest to yourself that it 
is gone or is leaving 3-011, at the same time calmly will- 
ing it to depart, and it will be instantly relieved. If 
your feet are cold, and consequently the opposite pole 



68 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

of the body hot and pressed with blood and the nerve 
force, suggest to yourself that they are becoming warm, 
and you will be astonished to perceive how soon they 
will begin to glow with heat. Whatever you suggest, 
and will, and believe, is at once done. The body obeys 
the slightest hint from the sovereign mind. The mind is 
restored to its lawful sovereignty, and assorts its divine 
right to rule the whole physiological domain. It gov- 
erns its own material world cM r/r<iti<'. by the grace of 
God. If you will any change to be ell'eetcd, and believe 
it, it is certain to be so, for the whole system now comes 
under the action of the law of faith. What some call 
imagination or fancy becomes at once a reality. This 
strange power becomes an actual creative force. Faith 
operates with greater power. If you are afflicted with 
any pain or disease, understanding as you now do that 
it is one of the laws of our being, that while in this 
ceptible state the body is subject to the mind, it ought 
to be no more difficult to believe that you will feel better 
of your disease, than to give Credence to the proposition 
that the sun will rise to-morrow morning. It is not 
mere fancy any more than your disease is. You are 
not called to the exercise of a blind faith, but an intelli- 
gent confidence in the operation of the divine laws o* 
nature. 

If there is pain or inflammation in any part, it is at 
once relieved by withdrawing the mind from it, and 
keeping the attention away from it. The diseased con- 
dition may be caused by an excessive accumulation and 
determination of the spiritual principle to the parts. 
The more perfectly } r ou can abstract the mind from it, 
the greater will be the insensibility, and the more com- 
plete the relief. The pain is not in the material body, 
but in the spiritual organism. All sensation is in the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 69 

mind. Withdraw this from the diseased part, and the 
pain and disease go with it. This can be done, for the 
spiritual element or principle is subject to your own 
will. It is well known that, in a revery, a person may 
even burn his hand, and not feel it. The part is 
virtually asleep. He is not sensible of pain until the 
attention is directed to it. In sleep all pains are unpcr- 
ceived ; they are annihilated. We can learn to put 
any diseased and painful part to sleep by abstracting 
the mind and the consciousness from it, and thus leave 
the forces of nature to operate without obstruction and 
without interference. This alone will suffice to cure 
many forms of chronic disease. Here is a principle of 
great practical value, and one that will well repay 
patient study and thorough investigation. 

If there be any part of the body in an opposite con- 
dition, that is, where the pathological state consists in 
weakness, diminished sensibility, coldness, or a lack 
of vitality, pursue a different course with it. In- 
stead of abstracting the mind from it, infuse spiritual 
life into it. Turn the course of the vital current to- 
wards it, by directing the attention, the thoughts, and 
the will to it. It will be found more efficient than all 
stimulants, tonics, or liniments that were ever used.* 
Give it large doses of spiritual medicine, for it is the 
spiritual element and force that it needs. You may say 
the blood does not flow to the weakened part or organ. 
That may be true. The nerves distributed to the place 
may be torpid, both those of sensation and of motion. 
But the real question is, What is the cause of this Wftmt 
of action in the vascular system, this torpidity, this 

* The influence of directed consciousness, or the concentration 
of the attention, on the various bodily <»i My diBCn 

in Dr. Holland's Mental Physiology, pp. lo-i~>. 



70 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

weakened movement? It lacks the spiritual force, the 
living, moving principle. This lies at the root of the 
trouble. The remedy is to turn the vital stream in that 
direction. If there is a lack of life in any part, then 
an excess of it somewhere else. Take from the 01 
and give to the other, and thus restore the balance. 
The restoration of the lost harmony is health. If 
better understood the laws of our being, the relation of 
the mind to the body, the influence of the one upon the 
other both in health and di>< 1 the wonderful 

powers that arc latent and dormant within as from not 
knowing how to use them, a physician would seldom he 
necessary. We should then the art of selfdieal- 

ing, and not often he onder th $ity of going out 

of ourselves for the appropriate remedy for our dis- 
eases. 

In changing the disordered mental b1 melan- 

choly, anxiety, impatience, and despair, which lie at the 
root of most chronic ailments, we shall find it easy to 
so in the self-induced impressible condition, if we vol- 
untarily assume that attitude of body and expression of 
the face which the feelings or emotions we wish to excite 
cause us naturally to assume, and then they sponta- 
neous^ arise within us. This is governed by a law of 
our nature, well stated by Maudsley : " When we put 
ourselves in the attitude that any passion naturally 
occasions, it is most certain that we acquire in some 
degree that passion. In our emotional life, any particu- 
lar passion is rendered stronger and more distinct by the 
existence of those bodily states which it naturally pro- 
duces, and which in turn, when otherwise produced, tend 
to engender it. Mr. Braid found, by experiments on 
persons whom he had put into a state of hypnotism, that 
by inducing attitudes of body natural to certain pas- 



MEXTAL MEDICINE. 71 

sions, be could excite those passions." (Physiology and 
Pathology of the Mind, p. 140.) Thus, if we place the 
face and limbs in au attitude which is the normal out- 
ward expression or correspondence of a certain emotion, 
that mental state will be actually excited. This subject 
has been fully discussed and illustrated in the previous 
work of the author, and it is necessary only to refer to 
it here. It is a principle of great practical value in the 
treatment of all chronic disturbances of the mental equili- 
brium and their corresponding morbid conditions of the 
physical organism. 

There seems to be, as was noticed by Aristotle and 
Thomas Aquinas, a sort of antagonism or contrast in 
the affections of the mind, although they are in intimate 
association. So that every psychical bane has its proper 
antidote. Thus anxiety is counterbalanced and neutral- 
ized by resignation ; fear by faith, hope and courage ; 
melancholy by cheerfulness ; sorrow and grief by joy 
and gladness ; anger by placidity and self-control ; and 
morbid haste and hurry of spirits by calmness and 
tranquillity. B3' attentively studying the morbid effect 
of thought and passion, we might often effect a salutary 
influence by establishing a train of contrasts in the 
mind, in the same way that for a poison introduced into 
the stomach and circulation, we give the appropriate 
chemical antidote. There is many a patient, who could 
be radically cured by a week of calm, unalloyed happi- 
ness. This is the panacea for all disordered, depressing 
mental states and the morbid bodily condition arising 
from them. Spinoza has actually reduced all the pas- 
sions and affections of the mind to three radical cm 
namely, joy, sorrow, and desire. The first arises when 
we pass from an imperfect to a better state, the second 



72 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

when we pass from a higher to a lower, and desire 
expresses the interior character of the individual. 

CONQUER AND REST. 

" Why not learn to conquer sorrow? 
Why not4earn to smile at pain? 
Why should every stormy morrow 
Shroud our way in gloom again ? 

" Why not lift the soul immortal 
Up to its angelic height — 

Bid it pan the radiant portal 
Of the world of faith and light? 

"Oh! there is another being 
All about us, all above, 
Hid from mortal MUM or feeing. 
Bare the nameless sense of I 

" Not the love that dies lik 

When the fro-t-fiiv seathes the sod, 
But the eternal rest that ck 

Bound the soul that dwells in God. 

"Into this rrreat habitation 

Never tear or sorrow OHM, 
Oh! it is the new creation, 

God its light, his love its llame. 

"Up, O soul ! and dwell forever 
On this hidden glorious shore ; 
Chilled by cloud-shade never, never, 
Up, and dwell for evermore." 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 73 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PERENO-MAGNETISM AND ITS USE IN MEDICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

Phrcjio- Magnetism Defined — The Brain the Organ of the Mind 
— Stimulation of the Organs by the Touch — The Philosophy 
of it — How the Patient can do it himself — Sensitiveness of the 
Brain to Mental Force — How to Increase the Action of the 
Cerebral Organs — Importance of the Mental States — Their 
Relation to Disease — The Way to Allay the Over- Excitement of 
an Organ — Mental Maladies and their Cure — Ilealth and 
Happiness — My Psalm. 

IT is found that many persons, while in the impressible 
state, and even in their normal condition, by simply 
touching with your fingers the different phrenological 
organs, will exhibit, in a heightened degree, the mental 
faculty or function of which those parts of the brain are 
the outward manifestation or correspondence. By touch- 
ing or pointing the finger at benevolence, or veneration, 
or hope, or self-esteem, they immediately feel, and out- 
wardly manifest, each of those sentiments. This is 
called Phreno-Magnetism. It is now generally admitted 
by physiologists, that the brain is the organ of the mind, 
and that the several faculties of the mind act b}- mei 
of different parts of the brain. Admitting this, it 
would seem to be practicable to excite or to allay the 
activity of the several organs. The increased action of 
those parts of the cerebral mass, occasioned by touching 
them, may result from two distinct causes, either of 



74 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

which may be adequate to produce the phenomenon 
above described. The odyllic and psychic emanation of 
the hand may afford a stimulus to that particular part of 
the brain, and thus increase its vital activity. We know 
that when we place the hand upon any part of the body, 
the place of contact immediately exhibits an increased 
vascular action. This is indicated by the heightened 
glow of that point of the body. The same effect would 
evidently be produced upon the brain. Touch the organ 
you wish to excite, or any part of the brain whose activ- 
ity you may desire to augment, and silently will or 
suggest that they feel happy, or calm, or strong, or 
hopeful, as the case may require, and it will have its 
effect in inspiring the proper mental state. The feelings 
which you thus induce may be transferred to the nor- 
mal condition, for your mental and magnetic force will 
give a healthier tone to the organs. In this way a 
thorough conversion may be wrought in their mental and 
spiritual status. But the touch of the hand excites the 
organ to increased action in another way. It draws the 
attention of the patient to that part of the brain which 
is the point of contact. It thus causes a concentration 
of his mental force to it, and thus augments its activity 
when otherwise it would be dormant. But it is evident 
that a patient can do this himself. If there be any 
mental faculty or faculties that are not sufficiently 
active, and a correspondingly depressed state of the 
feelings, as of hope, or courage, or energy, and he 
wishes to stimulate them to greater activity, let him 
direct his attention to them, and this will afford them 
their natural stimulus. If he cannot do it otherwise, let 
him place his finger upon them, so as to point the mind 
and direct the spiritual force to them. Once excited, 
they will continue so until adequate causes render them 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 75 

torpid ; for a body at rest, by its own inertia, continues 
at rest until some force sets it in motion ; and a body 
in motion continues its movement until stopped by a 
force equal to that which originated its motion. There 
are some persons who can excite in themselves any 
organ of the brain they choose, and in a moment, and 
thus can give increased activity and intensity to any 
feeling or sentiment. If hope is in a negative or 
depressed state, and we are inclined to discouragement 
and despair, let us fix the attention upon that part of 
the cerebrum which is the organ of hope, and, if need be, 
place 3'our finger upon it, and a joyful sunshine will 
light your darkness. The same may be said of mirthful- 
ness, of firmness, of self-esteem, or any of the cerebral 
organs. The brain is singularly sensitive to mental 
force. B3- directing the mind to any part of it, and fix- 
ing the attention upon it, its vital activity is increased. 

He who makes use of the psychopathic treatment for 
the cure of disease will always find it necessary to 
attend to the mental states of his patients. This is a 
matter of supreme importance, for in their disordered 
spiritual condition lies the root of their disease. Health 
and happiness are inseparably connected. No one can 
be well who is habitually under the influence of melan- 
choly, or anxiety, or despair, or any of the depressing 
mental emotions. These must be removed before a 
healthy and harmonious action of the bodily organs can 
be established. It is one of the higher uses and advan- 
tages of medical psychology that it makes the patient 
happy in proportion as he comes under its influence. 
This alone is far better than any medicinal compounds. 
Cheerfulness, and a heart serenely blissful, have a sana- 
tive virtue and potency beyond that of the most powerful 
drug. The psychopathic physician must infuse into his 



76 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

patients, hope, faith, courage, energy, and contentment. 
In a word, he must make them tranquilly happy. This he 
will find it easy to do, by following out the hints given 
in this chapter, especially if he is himself under the 
dominion of those sentiments. He will easily communi- 
cate their spiritual contagion and the sphere of their 
influence to others, and impregnate them with his own 
happiness. 

It is also in the power of any one, especially if assisted 
by a congenial and sympathetic friend, to allay or dimin- 
ish the action of any organ in the brain, and put it, B 
were, to sleep. Sometimes people find themselves in an 
unhappy, and Consequently an unhealthy state, from the 
abnormal excitement of certain phrenological organs, and 
the feelings of which they are the exponent. Fear, in 
some of its multifarious forms, is too active. They 
filled with baseless anxieties, and doubts, and forebodio 
or COmbativeness is in a fever heat. BO that they are im- 
patient, morbidly sensitive 1 , excitable, and irritable. 
Health is impossible in such a state of mind. To dimin- 
ish the activity of any organ in the brain, pursue a course 
the opposite of that which is necessary to augment its 
movement and increase its excitement. While in the 
self-induced impressible state, turn the mental force and 
withdraw the spiritual principle from it. The withdrawal 
of all mental stimulus from it will quiet its abnormal 
excitement. The blood, the nervous force, and the mag- 
netic life will no longer rush towards the part, but will 
be determined to other portions of the organism. It will 
assist in doing this if the physician places his hand upon 
the organ for a moment, and then removes it to the 
shoulders, or some point below. This produces a deriva- 
tive eifect. The magnetism, as it is called, imparted by 
the hand will be attracted downward, and the accumulated 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 77 

odyleic and nervous force of that part of ibe brain with it. 
The patient, of course, must co-operate with the physi- 
cian in this cure of his mental maladies. He should be 
taught and empowered to have no regret for the. past, or 
anxiety about the future. Learn him to live in the pres- 
ent moment, to find something to enjoy here and now, 
and not to feed his soul on the unsubstantial shadows 
of past enjoyments. We can never recall the past. 
When we find our only bliss in living over in our mem- 
ory pleasant scenes and sacred joys that have gone by, 
our life stands still. We stay in our march of progression. 
It can afford, at most, only a painful pleasure, — the joy 
of grief. Our motto should be, Onward and upward. To 
think too much of past joys is to fail of realizing the 
good with which the present moment always comes 
freighted. Forgetting the things that are behind, we 
should reach forth unto those that are before. Whether 
we see it and believe it, or not, the gateway of a glorious 
future is opening before every human soul, and our path- 
way to-day is somehow leading to it. Then let hope 
spring eternal in the human breast, and let us find 
a perpetual feast of enjoyment in the divine arrange- 
ments of the present minute. In the calm content- 
ment and serene happiness that accompany a life of 
unselfish activity and usefulness, we may attain the 
enduring bliss " that mixes man with heaven, " and 
gain a spiritual standing-ground, where the light from 
higher skies slips down and mingles with the blue of our 
own firmament, and we hear another and sweeter music 
through all of earth's harmonies. 

MY PSALM. 

" I mourn no more my vanished years ; 
Beneath a tender rain, 
An April rain of smiles and tears, 
My heart is young again. 



78 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" The west winds blow, and, singing low, 
I hear the glad streams run ; 
The windows of my soul I throw 
Wide open to the sun. 

" No longer forward nor behind 
I look in hope or fear ; 
But, grateful, take the good I find, 
The best of now and here. 

" I plough no more a barren land, 
To harvest weed and tare ; 
The manna dropping from God's hand 
Rebukes my painful care. 

11 I break my pilgrim staff, I lay 
Aside the toiling oar; 
The angel sought so far away 
I welcome at my door. 

11 All as God wills, who wisely heedl 
To give or to withhold, 

And knoweth more of all my n, 
Then all my prayers have told! 

"Enough that blessings undeserved 
Have marked my erring track; 
That whereso'er my feet have swerved, 
His chastening turned me back ; 

11 That more and more a Providence 
Of Love is understood, 
Making the springs of time and sense 
Sweet with eternal good ; 

11 That death seems but a covered way 
That opens into light, 
Wherein no blinded child can stray 
Beyond the Father's sight : 



MENTAL M E D IC I NS • 79 

11 That care and trial seem at last, 
Through memory's sunset air, 
Like mountain-ranges overpast, 
In purple distance fair. 

11 That all the jarring notes of life 

Seem blending in a psalm ; 

And all the angles of its strife 

Slow rounding into calm. 

u And so the shadows fall apart, 
And so the west winds play; 
And all the windows of my keart 
I open to the day." 

J. G. Wiiittier. 



80 MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

NERVOUS SENSITIVENESS AND INHARMONIOUS 
INFLUENCES. 

The State Described — Susceptibility to the Influence of Others — 
Characteristic of Insanity — Disease the I'itimation of a prior 
Mental Disorder — Illustration 'irre — Effect of Inhar- 

monious Influences upon Sensitive* — Inanimate Objects — All 
Dwellings are Haunted — Food affected by the Mental Effluvia 
— Dr. Sweetser — Effect of Drug Medication — Xecessity of the 
proper Sanative Conditions — Good the Goal of III. 

THERE is u numerous class of invalids whose nervous 
system is so delicately and abnormally sensitive, 
that they are unduly affected by the sphere or influence 
Of those in whose presence they happen to he. The dis- 
eased condition of others is transferred to them, and* 
sometimes with little or no mitigation. As if by an 
unseen contagion, the pains and physical disorders of 
those surrounding them are communicated sympatheti- 
cally to them. Especially are they affected by the dis- 
turbed mental states of others, which are immediately 
transmitted to them, subjecting them to much suffering, 
and producing an unbalanced spiritual condition, which 
seems to lie beyond their power to control. This is not, 
as is uncharitably supposed, the effect of imagination 
merely, but one of the most real things in human life, as 
many a nervous invalid too well knows from his own 
bitter experience. While the presence and aural emana- 
tion of those whose sphere is congenial and harmonious 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 81 

with their own, quiets and tranquillizes their disturbed 
mind and over-sensitive nerves, mitigates their sufferings, 
allays their unhealthy excitability, and exerts an unseen 
but potential sanative influence, the society of others 
intensifies every pain, accelerates the progress of their 
disease, and increases their mental and spiritual inhar- 
mony. Such a state of nervous sensitiveness is a 
morbid condition, though all are affected, more or less, 
by the persons and objects around them, only some in a 
much higher decree than others. It will be found that 
this is an almost invariable characteristic of insanity. 
nearly all insane patients being found highly sensitive to 
the sphere of their social surroundings ; and when that 
influence is discordant, their cure is extremely difficult, 
not to say impossible, until they are removed beyond its 
reach. This is one of the main grounds on which 
physicians, who make a specialt}- of treating mental and 
cerebral diseases, recommend their removal to asylums, 
where they are supposed to be beyond the reach of this 
cause of disturbance and obstacle to a cure. But in very 
many cases, it is to be feared, that this course, instead 
of an alleviation, is only an aggravation of it, by crowd- 
ing together the most heterogeneous and discordant 
spiritual elements, which mutually act and react upon 
each other, and this deleterious inharmonious influence 
is not (infrequently such, that under it the unfortunate 
patient passes to an incurable stage of his mental 
malady. Instead of arresting, it accelerates the morbid 
spiritual and cerebral condition, until it becomes con- 
firmed, or the brain undergoes a retrograde metamor- 
phosis or softening of its tissue. 

Every unbalanced mental condition, m the 

etymological sense of the term, is an insanity, or mental 
unsoundness, though the word is usually applied only to 



82 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

those extreme cases where there is a loss of control of 
the mental manifestations. Few, if any, chronic invalids 
can be found who are not the subjects of some serious 
spiritual disturbance, which is the primal source of 
their bodily disease. The cause of that long series of 
organic changes that constitute pathology is alw 
psychical rather than somatic. A large proportion of 
chronic disorders, especially those of a nervous type, are 
characterized by an over-sensitive state of the nervous 
system, caused by an antecedent morbid mental excite- 
ment and impressibility, and a confirmed habit of think' 
inrj that they arc sick. Molidre, the celebrated French 
dramatist, expresses an important principle of mental 
hygiene and psychological medicine, when in one of his 
plays, the Malade Imaginaire^ he represents cue of his 
characters, who had been busily occupied with some 
congenial and recreating labor, in the midst of such 
agreeable scenes and social influences as had caused him 
lively and pleasant emotions, as saying, * 4 1 am so busy 
that I have no time to think of my dif In this 

case, as the author of " Passional Hygiene and Natural 
Medicine" remarks on the passage, it no longer exi 
since he has found diversion of his thoughts and equilib- 
rium of mind. Will it be said that it did not exist 
before, when he did think of it? That is a mistake; a 
man is really sick in mind when he believes himself sick. 
This disorder of the imagination, as it is called, gradu- 
ally but surely leads to somatic or corporeal disease and 
lesion of the organs, accelerated, as it too frequently is, 
by the dangerous and damaging assistance of a physician, 
with his deleterious drugs, who oftener than otherwise 
confirms the patient in his fears and fixed belief. How 
to make the invalid forget his disease and the mental 
unhappiness that underlies it, so as to cure him of the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 83 

fixedness of the idea that he is sick and tn« tendency 
perpetually to concentrate the consciousness upon the 
deranged organism, which in many cases amounts to a 
mild form of monomania, is the important practical 
question in his treatment. As a matter of no small 
importance, in some cases even a sine qua ?io?i, he must 
be freed, so far as practicable, from all inharmonious 
and disturbing influences. It intensifies his painful 
sensations, renders all the nerves of sensibility super- 
naturally, or at least abnormally, acute ; and hence the 
thoughts are constantly directed to the diseased organs, 
as spontaneously as the needle to the pole, and thus in- 
creasing the physiological disturbance. It throws a pall 
of darkness upon the solitary ra}^ of hope that may 
linger to illuminate his despair, and the lamp of life 
burns down to a smoking wick. The psychopathic 
treatment is well adapted to this class of invalids. In 
their susceptible state, it operates with an efficiency that 
borders on the miraculous. 

The influence of inanimate objects is by no means un- 
important in the case of those of great nervous sensitive- 
ness. All houses, as Longfellow has said in one of his 
poems, are haunted houses, — pervaded by the subtle 
sphere of their former inhabitants, both the living and 
the dead, who are unperceived except by their influence. 
The walls of our dwellings, the furniture they contain, 
the works of art that ornament them, and the beds on 
which we repose at night, are charged and permanently 
impregnated with the material effluvia and psychical 
emanations of our persons and presence. Our mental 
states, our joys and sorrows, our hopes and despair, our 
tranquillity and disquietude, our peace and inharmonies, 
our loves and hates, are indelibly impressed upon them ; 
and to the psychometric sense, which many invalids 



84 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

possess, they become apparent, and are felt, if not per- 
ceived by the interior vision. This arcane principle of 
modern science must not be ignored. A young girl, 
under my direction for the cure of a depressing mono- 
mania, a seeming case of obsession of two years' stand- 
ing, aggravated by hereditary tendencies, insisted with 
the most urgent entreaty upon being removed to another 
house, affirming that in the place where she was, her 
recovery w r as an impossibility. Though reduced by 
weakness to the verge of dissolution, occasioned by pro- 
tracted fasting, which rendered her nervous system still 
more intensely sensitive to invisible and discordant semi- 
psychical influences, her request was finally granted, 
when her convalescence became more rapid and marked 
at once. A change of place, if no more than from one 
room to another, has frequently a sanative eff 
Beside the psychometric influence of the familiar 
objects of an apartment or house upon a sensitive sub- 
ject, they become connected in the mind with his pains 
and unhappiness, and by a law of *B80Ciatioi] recall and 
perpetuate them. They become a part of ourseh 

A somewhat distinguished physician and author avers 
that the food we eat is pervaded by the aural emanations 
and affected by the mental condition of those wdio pre- 
pare it for our tables. To the invalid it certainly seems 
far different when prepared by the hand of sympathetic 
friendship and kindness, than when coming from those 
who are uncongenial and toward whom lie feels an invol- 
untary antipathy and spontaneous repugnance. In 
illustration of the effects of this influence, too often 
ignored, he relates a fact in his own experience. He 
was called to dine in a house in which the funeral of a 
member of the family had been celebrated the day 
before. The house was filled with an invisible atmos- 



MENTAL M E 1) I C I X E . 85 

piiere of gloom. On eating of some bread, prepared the 
day before, be was soon after seized with a sense of 
grief and almost insupportable sorrow, without any 
apparent cause. He only found relief when, by an 
inverted action of the stomach, the spiritually-poisoned 
mass was ejected from the system, and thus prevented 
from entering into the composition of the tissues. All 
these things are of small moment to persons in sound 
health and in the full vigor of animal life, who are no 
more disturbed by them than would be the calm repose 
and negative happiness of the ox. But to those of 
refined mental organization and sensitive nervous tem- 
perament, rendered doubly acute b}' disease, they lose 
their character of insignificant trifles and morbid fancies. 

What I have said of the bad effects of inharmonious 
influences upon nervous sensitives will apply to the use 
of medicines. In the practice of medical psycholog}^, I 
have made it a general rule to require the patient to sus- 
pend the use of all other remedies except those of a 
hygienic nature, knowing that it is sometimes more diffi- 
cult to neutralize the etfects of drugs than to cure the 
diseases for which they are administered. Those of a 
poisonous nature operate to cure disease by creating 
another morbid condition inconsistent witli the first. 
Hence the word Allopathy, which is composed of two 
Greek terms signifying another disease, has been used 
to designate this s}'stem. This, at best, is only exchang- 
ing one evil for another, or rather it is casting out 
demons by Beelzebub, rather than by the nnger of God. 

Psychopathy, in common with all therapeutic Bjrste 
will sometimes fail to cure certain persons, from the non- 
-tence of the essential conditions of its restorative 
influence. Its effects are counterbalanced by the influ- 
ence of opposing forces. In the absence of the necessary 



86 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

conditions, even Jesus, the Christ, could not perform 
mighty works of healing. Under these circumstances, 
it is as unreasonable to demand or expect a cure, as to 
require one to build a house with no materials with 
which to construct it, and no foundation on which to 
place it. The patient may be, from certain opposing 
circumstances, either in his own mental condition, or his 
inharmonious surroundings, not receptive of any sana- 
tive influence. This applies equally well to every method 
of healing in use in the world. The failure to effect a 
cure by physicians of any school is not always owing to 
the incfliciency of the remedial agencies employed in the 
case, or their want of chemical adaptation to the disc: 
but from circumstances beyond their control. In all 
these cases the true physician can only commend the 
patient to the care of a loving Providence, feeling as- 
sured that disorder has its laws and limitations, and 
suffering, both of body and mind, its compensations and 
rewards as a restorative spiritual discipline, and means 
of developing the inner nature. The great end of life 
and goal of human progression is an intimate and con- 
scious union with God through the whole extent of our 
faculties, and the limitless period of the soul's duration. 
For this the inmost centre of our being ever yearns and 
to it perpetually gravitates. The route to its attainment 
sometimes lies through great tribulation. But, as 
Cousin, the French metaphysician, lias said, no road is 
absolutely bad that conducts us to God. 

GOOD THE FINAL GOAL OF ILL. 

" Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt and taints of blood ; 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 87 

14 That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete; 

14 That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

14 Behold, we know not anything; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

14 So runs my dream : but what am I? 

An infant crying in the night: 

An infant crying for the light : 

And with no language but a cry.'* 

Tennyson. 



88 MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE DUALITY OF THE BOND AND BODY, AND THE 
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DISTINCTION IN THE 
PSYCHIC AND MAGNETIC FORCES OF THE OR- 
GANISM. 

Polar Distribution — The Body a 

Magnet — Numerous Pole* — T D ositioe — The 

Left Negative — TJie Two Sid,s — The FrOfti 
and Feet — Difference between the P d Negative 1 < 

explained — When to use the Right Hand — Philosophy of it — 
'When ike Left J land is to be used — The Both — How 

to use them together — Two Kinds of Inflammation — Their 
Difference — How to Treat them — Circumstances of Secondary 
Importance favorable to the Curative Influence of Magnetism — 
The Duality of the Mind and Body — The Nature of Disease. 

THE psychic and magnetic forces of the human body are 
analogous to ferro-magnetism, or the artificial mag- 
net, in having a polar distribution. The two principal 

poles arc the right and left hands. The right hand is 
positive, the left is negative. Besides these there arc 
numerous others. The right and left sides all the way 
through are in magnetic opposition, but in a state of 
health so equally balanced as to be in equilibrium. 
The right side is positive, the left side i^ negative, 
through their entire extent. The same may be said of 
the front and back sides. The anterior portion is posi- 
tive, the posterior is negative. In the female organism 
the opposite of this is true. The head and feet are the 
poles of the two extremities of the body. Hence coun- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 89 

ter-irritants are applied to the feet in inflammation of 
the brain. And where there is inflammation on one side 
of the body, the face, or one hand, or leg, it is always 
better to apply the irritant and stimulant to the opposite 
side. This produces what is called a derivative effect. 
This hint may be of use in the psychopathic treatment 
of a patient. 

The difference between a positive and negative mag- 
netic and ps}'chological force, it may be difficult to 
explain so clearly as to be easily apprehended. It is to 
be understood in the outset that a negative force is no 
less real than a positive one. It is not the negation of 
a force, but one of an opposite and different character. 
Both are equally real. Action always implies reaction, 
and these are equal. A positive force, as in electricity, 
is that which is active ; a negative force is reactionary, 
but still equal to the former. If the positive force is au 
undulation or vibratory movement, —.and such are 
light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, — the negative 
would be expressed by an undulatory wave moving in 
the opposite direction, the waves being situated between 
the others. The magnetism of the right hand, or the 
positive pole of the animal magnet, is repellant and cool- 
ing ; that of the left is attractive and warming. To the 
interior perception, the odyllic emanation of the right 
hand, like that of the north pole of the artificial magnet, 
is of a pale blue color, and produces a cooling sensation, 
like that of a gentle breeze, upon one sufficiently impres- 
sible to feel it. The emanation from the left hand, and- 
the south pole of the magnet, is red, or white tinged 
with red, and produces a sensation of warmth. So of 
those two colors, the one is positive, the other odvllically 
The right hand acts from without inward ; the 
left hand from within outward. The one sends the 



90 MENTAL MEDICINE 

force inward ; the other attracts it from above down- 
ward, and from the interior to the surface. Where there 
is an inflammation or accumulation of positive ps}'chic 
and magnetic life, it is to be dispersed by the positive 
or north pole of the human battery, — the right hand. 
The philosophy of this is plain. It is one of the 
most familiar phenomena of magnetism and electricity, 
that between positive and positive there is repulsion. 
Place the north poles of two magnets in contact, and 
they are immediately pushed apart. If the forebrain, 
which is positive, is hot and congested, place the right 
hand upon it, which is also positive, and it repels its 
accumulated magnetic force, and disperses the inilamma- 
tion. It greatly in doing this, if the left hand be 

placed upon the back of the head, which will attract the 
magnetism of the forebrain and the right hand to it, for 
between negative and positive there is attraction. If 
there be coldness, or a lack of vitality, in any part, 
place the left hand over it, and the right hand on the 
opposite side or pole, and soon the distribution of the 
vital heat, or living organic force, will be equalized. It 
is always well to place the two hands on the opposite 
sides. If one is laid upon the epigastrium, or pit of the 
stomach, the other should be held upon the spine hack 
of it. If one hand is placed on the right side of the 
brain, the other must be placed upon the left side. The 
psychic force will then pass from one hand to the other, 
and equalize the circulation of the imponderable and 
mysterious principle of life. Sometimes, as Deleutze 
remarks, the hands will feel as if they touched. This 
always indicates an efficient and favorable action of the 
subtle influence. Some persons also have a perception 
of the current as it flows from hand to hand. But this 
is not common. 



. I 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 91 

I have said that inflammations are to be dispersed 
with the right hand. But there are both positive and 
negative inflammations and congestions. The one is an 
accumulation of negative, and the other of positive vital 
force. The pain of a positive inflammation is an ache ; 
that of a negative more of a smarting sensation, and 
may be described sometimes as half way between an 
ache and a smart. Bear in mind that between negative 
and negative there is repulsion. You can disperse it 
then with the left hand, while } t ou place the other upon 
the opposite side or pole. Or you can infuse into it 
the positive psychic force, using the right hand as a 
conductor. 

It was found, by Reichenbach, that the rays of the sun 
falling upon his sensitives caused a sensation of cool- 
ness, while those of the moon and the planets, which 
shine by reflected light, were odyllically warm. A hot 
stove caused to the very sensitive a sensation of cold- 
ness, amounting almost to a frost, until they came so 
near it as to be affected by its radiated heat. This 
accounts for the depressing influence upon the vital 
force of an atmosphere heated by an iron stove. And I 
am convinced that the therapeutic results of this system 
of medical psychology can be best realized in a room 
which, though not dark, is but imperfectly lighted. It 
should also be only moderately heated, and, if possible, 
with an open grate, or fireplace, which is best of all, or 
with a soapstone stove. An apartment on the north 
• of the house is to be preferred. These may be 
deemed things of minor consequence, and certainty they 
are not to be classed among the " weightier matters of 
the law," yet they have their importance. One of the 
most successful healers, by this method of treatment, of 
whom I have ever read, Ilerr Richter, of Silesia, wore a 



92 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

loose scarlet robe, with which he sometimes struck the 
patient, commanding disease to depart. There may be 
philosophy in this, as red is a color magnetically and 
odyllically positive. There is often an unrecognized 
power and sanative value in little things, which might 
seem matters of indifference. We do well to learn what 
these things are, and avail ourselves of tl, 

The dual nature of man is an in' I of 

Study, and has not received the I Q its importance 

demands. There arc two distinct departments of the 

mind, the intellectual and ach of th 

mental halves is b distinct, though not absolute 
arate mind by itself The difference in them is, that in 
the oik 1 the intellectual predominates, in the other the 
allectional and emotional. It i- 

that, there may he two synchronous trains of thought 
and feeling, which may he in harmony, or, as they often 
are, in conflict. The one is the normal, the other an 
abnormal and disturbed mental - the due 

balance between the two departments of the mental 
structure^ lies at the root ofmost forms of menial dig 
and inharmony. When the two exist in equal 
and act in perfect concert, just as both eyes see at once 
and alike the same object, it constitute- a condition of 
mental soundness, health and harmony. ponding 

to this peculiar mental organization, we have a bodily 
structure composed of two distinct parts. The whole 
human organism is, in the beginnin^ up of two 

absolutely distinct halves, which ultimately grow to- 
gether and unite. The brain, the organ of the mind, 
though not properly double, is dual in its structure and ar- 
rangement, as much so as the two eyes and the two ears 
and all the organs of sense. What is called the two In 
spheres of the brain, separated from each other by a mem- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 93 

brane dipping down between them (the/a?&), is a mis- 
nomer, as the two together constitute little more than 
half a sphere, and each by itself only about the fourth 
of a sphere. But there is reason to believe, and, in fact, 
has been demonstrated, that these twin halves are each 
a distinct and perfect whole as an organ of thought and 
feeling, and a separate and distinct process of thinking 
and reasoning may be carried on in each simultaneously 
and successively.* The desires and volitions of the one 
may be opposed to those of the other. This experience 
led the Persian monarch, Cyrus, according to Xenophon, 
to conclude that he had two souls. This inward conflict, 
this interior schism, is vividly described by Paul, in the 
seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans. The per- 
fect union of the divine love and divine wisdom in God 
makes him at the same time the Infinite Father and 
Mother, under which latter designation the world is just 
beginning to apprehend him. So " in the beginning, 
God made man male and female." Every human being 
has in himself the peculiarly masculine and feminine prin- 
ciples, the intellectual and affectional, the positive and 
negative, and these find their appropriate organ of exter- 
nal manifestation in the right and left sides of the brain 
and body. "When these are perfectly combined and ad 
in unison, we have the mens sana in COTpore sano, the 
sound mind in a sound body ; in other words, health and 
harmony. The excessive predominance of the positive 
over the negative, or of the negative over the positive, 

♦This subject has been thoroughly discussed, and illustrated by 

I, in the able work of Dr. Wigan, entitled, u A New Yii n 

iity; or, the Duality of the Mind." The great objection to 

the -work is found in its extreme materialistic f human 

nature, an objection equally applicable to Maudsley, \\ inslow, and 

many others. 



94 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

or the entire loss or suppression of one or the other, con- 
stitutes the state of inharmony we call mental and bodily 
disease ; a word made up of dis, without, and case, and 
in its primary sense signifying uneasiness, disquietude, 
restlessness, and unhappiness. This loss of balance, 
which constitutes disease, we witness in an exaggerated 
degree in what is called hemiplegia. This is the typical 
representation of all disease, only existing in a marked 
and heightened form. To discover the cause of the lost 
balance and restore the harmony is the function of the 
psychopathic physician. Above all remedial agencies in 
nature, nothing is so well adapted to this result as an 
intelligent application of the principles of medical psy- 
chology. The subject of the duality of the mind and 
body deserves a more extended discussion than I can 
devote to it here. I can only hope that these hints and 
glimpses of thought may provoke in some mind a more 
extended investigation, which will certainly be repaid 
with a fruitful harvest of the best results. 

All diseases may be reduced to U\o classes, the posi- 
tive and negative. In the menial state, underlying the 
one class, the intellectual is in excess ; in the other class 
the affectional. In the corresponding bodily condition 
we have, in the one case, an increased sensibility and 
heightened temperature ; in the other, a cold, weakened, 
and devitalized state of the organism. Where there is 
an excess of positive magnetism in the patient, and this 
constitutes the morbid condition, it may be neutralized 
by the negative magnetism of some other person, for 
opposite magnetic forces neutralize each other, just as 
certainly as do acids and alkalies in chemical combina- 
tions.* If the disease be characterized by the predomi- 

* I use the word magnetism as expressive of an analogy rather 
than an identity with the vital principle. The phrase, psychic 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 95 

nance of the negative force, impart to the patient, from 
the stores of 3-our own surplus, positive magnetic life, 
and this will benefit him just as surely as a too acid state 
of a substance may be neutralized by the mixture of an 
alkali with it. In this established principle, that a pos- 
itive and negative magnetic force neutralize each other, 
is found the subtle chemical action that constitutes the 
modus operandi in many cases of sudden cures by the 
psychopathic treatment. Where the magnetism of the 
physician is perfectly adapted to the diseased condition 
of the patient, he may be as certain of affording relief, 
and ultimately of effecting a cure, as he can be that a 
heated substance will impart warmth to a cold one ; that 
a darkened mansion may be made light and joyous by 
the admission of the sun's rays, or an acid neutralized 
by an alkali. Where the patient and ptrysician are in 
opposite magnetic states, the cure will certainly follow 
the intelligent application of the treatment, if the dis- 
ease has not passed into the incurable stage, and where 
this is manifestly the case, it will afford relief. 

If the highest results in the psychopathic treatment 
are realized only where there is the widest difference in 
the magnetic condition of the patient and operator, it 
migl that one person could not be adapted to only 

a certain class of cases, and not to each case that might 
come before him. This, to some extent, is true. One 
individual will produce a certain etfect, or physiological 
change, as. for instance, perspiration, much more readily 
than another. Some will affect particular organs more 
lily than others, as the lungs, the liver, the stomach, 

force, derived from a Grec •••. rignifying the mind or -mil, 

Dtlj introduced by lain certain mysterious 

lornena, is to red. Of this the hands arc the 

■ 



96 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

or the kidneys. Some are better adapted, as perhaps in 
my own case, to mental and nervous diseases. While 
all this is true, yet we can become positive or negative 
towards a patient at will. There are cases where we 
must assume a state of negative passivity towards the 
invalid, and others towards whom we must become 
intensely and actively positive. These magnetic trans- 
formations and metamorphoses can be easily effected, 
and thoy naturally and spontaneously follow the cor- 
responding change in our mental attitude towards the 
patient. The only difficulty is to know when to become 
positive, and when negative, in order to adapt our mag- 
netism to the demands of the particular case. But this 
we shall soon learn by practice and experiem 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 97 



CHAPTER XI. 

TIIE BRAIN AXD PSYCHIC AND NERVE CENTRES. 

Ures — Their Number and Location — Relation of the 
Brain to the general System — The Nerve Substance the Pri- 
mary Scat of Disease — The Brain the Fountain of Psychic 
\fe — Its Susccjriibility to Magnetism — Directions i 

) be Avoided — The Imparted Magnetism not 
to be left there — JToir to Distribute it where r 7 — Con- 

nection of the Bodily < 'h certain Parts of the Ccrchrum 

— The State of these Parts an Index to that of the Organ 
The Scat of Muscular Force — An Illustrative Case — The 
Liver and the Brain — Kidney? — The Bowels — Duodenum — 
e Diaphragm -- How to Increase the Respiratory Force — 
The Cure of Asthma — Catarrh — How the Mag f the 

Brain affects the whole Body — Functions of the Cerebellum 

TEEKE are certain parts of the body which may be 
properly denominai ;etic centres. The psy- 

chopathic treatment of I I large num- 

DS within the cavity 

of the trunk which are md below ti 

These centres and reservoirs for the distribution of the 

and nervoof re the brain. th< ihe 

riam, the abdominal and hypochondri >ns. 

brain is the fountain of all nerve od to 

the 
irith the brain, i 

mu 



98 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

These are continuations of the brain into the body. If 
we purify this fountain of life from disease, the stream 
soon runs clear. It is a well-established fact of pathol- 
ogy, that disease has its primary seat in some abnormal 
state of the nervous system. All diseases, though they 
may originate in some prior disturbed mental and 
spiritual states, first affect the nerves. All morbid con- 
ditions are, so far as the body is concerned, originally 
and primarily nervous diseases. The brain and nerves 
are first affected, before the various bodily organs are 
deranged in their functional movements. This would 
seem unerringly to indicate that the brain should receive 
marked attention in the cure of disease by the psycho- 
pathic method, and even by any system of medication. 
We must begin the cure where the disease commences. 
It is a common observation, that if the head feel well, 
we feel well every where. It is equally true that if the 
brain is in an abnormal state, the system is generally 
deranged. It is a fortunate circumstance that the 
cerebral tissue seems to be more susceptible to the mag- 
netic and psychic influence than any other part of the 
organism. The hands, properly applied to the brain, 
will soon restore the lost harmony in the circulation and 
distribution of the forces that here have their origin. 
When this reservoir of life and health is repaired, a 
healthy vital current will be conveyed by the nerves to 
every other organ and tissue. Place the hands, one on 
the forebrain and the other upon the occiput or back of 
the head, and gently press on those parts. Apply them 
also to the sides in the same manner. Pass the hand 
from the forehead around the side over the temples, and 
also over the brain, from the front to the back brain, 
along the mesial line, or the line dividing the two hemi- 
spheres. Apply vigorous friction with the left hand to 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 99 

the back brain and neck. Then place the hands upon 
the shoulders for a moment, and apply friction and pres- 
sure to the arms, and the spine, and sometimes, if the 
case requires it, also to the abdomen and lower extrem- 
ities. This will serve to restore harmony to the brain, 
and cause a diffusion of its nerve force to all the organs 
of the body, — an important point to be gained, and one 
that cannot be so well effected by the administration of 
medicines. There are few chronic invalids who would 
not feel better by such a treatment. In fact, it will 
Buffice to cure a large fraction of chronic ailments that 
come under the care of a physician. Who has not felt 
invigorated and refreshed after the head has been rubbed 
and champooed by the barber? And the old lady came 
to her bishop and requested him to repeat the rite of 
confirmation, because the imposition of his hands was 
good for her rheumatism. 

Owing to the extreme susceptibility of the brain to 
the psychic influence, a prolonged and excessive treat- 
ment of it must be avoided. An error here is not 
uncommon. From one to five minutes will suffice. If 
3'ou have much magnetic force, a single minute will 
often be enough. 

The magnetism imparted to the brain should not, as 
a general rule, be left here, except in cases where there 
is a lack of magnetic life in it, and it is cold and slug- 
gish, but it should be attracted downward to the organs 
of the body, by passing the hand down the spine, and 
sometimes by rubbing and kneading the whole body, 
flexing and extending the limbs, and bending the joints. 
This is not always necessary, and is laborious and 
exhausting. By passing the hand downward, it will 
serve to restore the nervous connection b the 

brain and the various organs and parts of the body. 



100 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

Some defect in this communication is often the cause of 
disease. The nerve force, instead of being dispersed to 
every part of the body, accumulates in the brain, and 
mental disturbance and inharmony, and a weakness in 
the functional activity of the various organs, are the 
result. 

It is now well established in physiology, that each of 
the principal organs of the body, as the heart, the lungs, 
the liver, the stomach, the intestinal canal, and the kid- 
neys, receives its nerve force and stimulus from a cer- 
tain part of the brain, which is assigned to its special 
function. This is why a judicious treatment of the brain 
favorably affects every organ in the body. Disease of 
the liver, or obstinate constipation, or dyspepsia, or a 
derangement of the kidneys and renal functions, is indi- 
cated by the condition of certain parts of the cerebrum. 
I have never found much difficulty in gaining a correct 
diagnosis of the diseased condition of a patient from an 
examination of the state of the brain. 

There is a part of the brain, situated midway between 
firmness and self-esteem, in which ail voluntary muscular 
force and physical strength originates. In cases of gen- 
eral organic weakness, and the different forms of female 
diseases arising from debility, this place will be found 
sensitive to pressure, and will be inflamed and congested. 
Sometimes the patient cannot bear the pressure of the 
head against the back of a chair. Some years ago a 
lady, of about thirty years of age, was brought to me, 
who had not walked ten rods at one time for nine years. 
She was brought into the house in the arms of another 
and laid upon the bed. The next morning, on exam- 
ining her case, no serious organic disease conid be de- 
tected, and no great derangement or displacement of the 
uterine organs, but only a general weakness everywhere. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 101 

The part of the brain before mentioned was tender and 
congested. I informed her where the trouble was sit- 
uated, and that I could cover it with the palm of my 
hand. I proceeded to treat her on the supposition that 
this part of the cerebrum was alone at fault, cooled its 
inflammation by the magnetism of the hand wet in 
water, and dispersed its accumulated nerve-force to the 
general organism which needed it. The whole system 
seemed to be restored to a healthy tone at once. She 
could walk for miles without fatigue, and has continued 
well to the present date. Other facts equally interest- 
ing might be given. 

The liver receives its peculiar cerebral or nerve stim- 
ulus, from a part of the brain situated between combat- 
iveness and cautiousness ; the kidneys from a point on 
each side of causality ; the bowels from the part of the 
brain between hope and veneration. In some forms of 
dyspepsia the brain is affected between benevolence and 
veneration. Inflammation of the duodenum is indi- 
cated by a spot tender to pressure situated half way 
between the angle of the eye and the ear. The sore 
eyes that accompan}^ it are immediately relieved by 
cooling this part of the brain. 

There is no physiological function of more conse- 
quence than the respiration. A good respiration is of 
equal importance with a good digestion. The more one 
breathes, the stronger he is. The breathing force is sup- 
plied by the diaphragm, the lungs being wholly passive 
in the act. There is a part of the brain just above the 
nose, and above and between the eyes, that seems to be 
assigned to the function of respiration. It is in the 
region of the frontal sinus. By removing the tightness 
and congestion here, a patient will spontaneously draw 
a deep breath. Asthma is occasioned by a want of 



102 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

nervous force in the diaphragm, and a consequent loss 
of its contractility. Catarrh is its incipient stage, and 
originates in the same cause. Both are exceedingly 
difficult to cure by medicine. Medical science has no 
reliable and certain remedy for either. But the magnet- 
ism of the hand applied to the region of the brain above 
described, so as to relieve its congestion, and determine 
its accumulated nerve-force to the diaphragm, will 
relieve and cure both complaints. While medicine can 
only afford a temporary alleviation of the symptoms, 
this goes to the root of the malady, and effects a funda- 
mental change. These discoveries were made by the 
interior vision, usually called clairvoyance, and have 
been confirmed by experiment. After many years of 
patient investigation, I am convinced of their correct- 
ness and practical value in the treatment of disease by 
psychic remedies. 

In another way an intelligent treatment of the brain 
may be made to affect favorably the action of all the 
vital organs. The cerebrum, or the front and large 
part of the brain, is the organ of our voluntary life. 
The involuntary functions of the different portions of 
the system are influenced by the cerebellum, or little 
brain, situated in the back of the head, and below the 
other. Now it usually happens that the large brain has 
too great a share of the nerve-force, or what has been 
improperly called the nerve-aura, and consequently robs 
the cerebellum of its proper proportion, and thus weak- 
ens the involuntary physiological processes. By placing 
the right or positive hand upon the forebrain, it repels 
its superabundant psychic life backward, while the left 
hand, at the same time placed upon the cerebellum, 
attracts it to that part of the brain. There is added to 
it also the magnetic force of the operator. Thus all the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 103 

involuntary vital processes, as the action of the heart and 
lungs, the necessary functions of digestion, secretion, 
excretion, assimilation and absorption, are stimulated to 
a more vigorous activity. By the new life thus imparted 
to the cerebellum, and of which it had been robbed by 
the over-action of the cerebrum, a healthy impulse is 
given to all these vital movements. This single form of 
treatment will be found extremely useful and recupera- 
tive in nearty all forms of chronic ailments, for they 
often consist in a debilitated action of the involuntary 
physiological functions, owing to a weakened condition 
of the cerebellum. By restoring the lost equilibrium in 
the nervous force of these two departments of the cere- 
bral organism, a cure is effected. 

The cerebellum, besides its being the organ of the 
amative sexual instinct, has other important functions, 
and when stimulated by the subtle magnetic and psychic 
force, important effects cannot fail to be produced. The 
discoveries of Mr. Atkinson, as recorded in the " Zoist" 
(Vol. 1, p. 249), have been confirmed by my own exper- 
iments and investigations. According to him, that por- 
tion of the cerebellum nearest the ear gives* the disposi- 
tion to muscular action; next to which, and about half 
way between the ear and the occiput on the top of the 
cerebellum, is muscular sense; beneath this is muscular 
power, giving force and strength. In the centre are 
what may be termed the plrysico-functional powers, a 
group of organs giving the sense of physical pleasure 
and pain, the sense of temperature, amativeness, etc. 
It is intuitively certain, and confirmed by observation 
and consciousness, that the tendency to muscular action, 
the sense of bodily pain and pleasure, and also of tem- 
perature, are affected by the state of the amative pro- 
pensity, and the portion of the little brain consecrated to 



104 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

its function. When a subject is in the impressible con- 
dition, by applying the finger to that part of the cere- 
bellum which gives us the sense of temperature, and 
thus augmenting its action, there is first experienced a 
pleasant glow of heat over the surface of the body, and 
this, if continued, is followed soon by a irentle perspi- 
ration. The cerebellum is a finely adjusted battery and 
reservoir of magnetic life and vital force. It> full 
development and health; are indicative, not only 

of the strength of the sexual love, as in the Bystem of 
(hill, but what is of eqaal importance of the quani 
of vital and muscular force in the organism. Its judi- 
cious psychopathic treatment mnal be followed by im- 
portant therapeutic results. The Influence is not lo 
or limited to the point of contact, but widely dill'i 
through the entire physiological domain. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 105 



CHAPTER XII. 

EFFECT OF THE. PSYCHOPATHIC TREATMENT OF 
THE SPINE AND SPINAL NERVES. 

The Spinal Column a Magnetic Centre — Its Relation to the 
Functions of Organic Life — The Ganglia and their Use — 
The Divisions of the Spine — Their distinct Functions — The 
Spinal Nerves — A rational Pathology of Nervous Diseases — 
Loss of Balance between the Motory and Sensory Nerves — The 
Cure of Nervous Invalidism Simple and Easy — The Method 
described — Adaptation of the Spinal Nerves to the Magnetic 
Treatment — How it Affects all the Organs in the Cavity of the 
Trunk — How to Believe Spinal Irritation and inflammation 
— Philosop>hy of it — The Small of the Back. 

ANOTHER important nerve-centre, whence a vital 
influence may be distributed to a large number of 
organs, is the spinal column, commencing in the medulla 
oblongata and extending through the length of the trunk 
of the body. It is now an universally acknowledged 
and recognized truth of physiology, that the spine sus- 
tains an important relation to, and connection with, the 
involuntary vital processes, of equal importance with 
that of the brain itself, of which it is the continuation. 
Its numerous ganglia, or knots, seem to be each a little 
brain, and an independent centre and reservoir for the 
distribution of the nervous and psychic forces. These 
closely resemble the circular swellings on the stalk of 

at and most of the grasses. They are laid in a r 
ular series down each side of the spine, and are con- 
nected by the great sympathetic nerve. There are other 



106 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

ganglia in the cavities of the chest and abdomen. It is 
quite possible and not beyond the range of actual fact, 
that the vital functions might be performed by the 
spinal nerves alone, for a longer or shorter period, when 
the brain was entirely quiescent, or even removed. But 
only the phenomena of the involuntary, or what has 
been called the vegetative life would be exhibited under 
those circumstances. The vital machinery would con- 
tinue in motion, but without any consciousness of its 
movement by the individual. 

Different columns of nervous matter combine to form 
the spinal marrow. It may be separated laterally into 
two general divisions. Each of these consists of three 
cords, one for motion, one for sensation, and one for the 
act of respiration. So that the spinal marrow consists, 
in all, of six rods bound together. The anterior column 
of each lateral division is for motion, the posterior for 
sensation, and the middle portion for respiration. The 
former two. extend into the brain and are lost in it. 
The latter terminates in the medulla oblongata, which 
crowns the compound column, as the function of respi- 
ration can be carried on independent of the reason and 
will. Thirty-one pairs of nerves proceed from the spine 
along its entire extent. These proceed from the spine 
in two distinct roots, which unite to form the trunk of 
the nerve. The front root is motory or employed in 
motion ; the posterior root is sensory. A loss of bal- 
ance between these two classes of nerves is sometimes a 
source of disease. This is perhaps uniformly the case in 
what are called nervous complaints. The sensations of 
the patient become morbidly acute, while there is a cor- 
responding loss of the power of motion and a disincli- 
nation to it. They suffer much, not from the absolute 
amount of pain, but from their extreme sensitiveness to 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 107 

it. A judicious psychopathic treatment is adequate to 
restore the lost harmony, by restoring to the nerves of 
motion their share of the cerebral force, and lessening 
that of the sensory nerves. In such patients, the res- 
piration is always feeble and imperfect, and general 
weakness is the result. The psychic force imparted by 
the physician will stimulate the respiratory cord of the 
spinal column. This will be better than any tonic or 
stimulant known to medical science. The skilful prac- 
titioner can direct his psychological force to either class 
of nerves. It obeys his will, and goes where he com- 
mands it. In most nervous invalids the nerve aura or 
force, generated in the brain and spine, is appropriated by 
the sensory nerves, and this monopoly leaves the motory 
nerves in an enfeebled condition proportioned to the de- 
gree of the inharmony. These latter nerves, by this defi- 
cient supply of their appropriate stimulus, and from a 
want of use, become too soft, and exhibit too great a de- 
gree of transparency, while the matter of a nerve in health 
and the due exercise of its influence is of an opaque white 
hue, and half way between a fluid and solid. If I have 
given the correct pathology of what are called nervous 
diseases, which constitute in their treatment a large pro- 
portion of the practice of the plrpician, the method of 
cure would seem to be a simple one. The lost harmony 
between the two classes of nerves must be restored. The 
nerves of motion must be stimulated to life and activ- 
ity to balance and to diminish the too great action of the 
nerves of sensation. The great question is, How can 
this best be done ? Fortunately nature has so arranged 
the nerves of motion as if purposely to adapt them to 
be acted upon by the magnetism of the hand. The 
motory nerves, before they are distributed to the muscu- 
lar tissue of the various organs and parts of the body, 



108 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

are formed into a sort of network by an interchange of 
branches. They cross each other and unite with each 
other, into an intricate mass or web, called a plexus. 
The most important of these are the brachial and lum- 
bar plexus, the one situated between the shoulders, and 
the other in the loins or small of the back. The plexus 
between the shoulders is formed by the interlocking and 
interlacing of six pairs of motory nerves. These after 
their union are distributed to the arms, the diaphragm, 
the intercostal muscles (or those between the ribs con- 
cerned in respiration), the heart and the lungs. The 
connection of these nerves con-til sympathetic 

communication between tin The 

subtle psychic magnetism of the hand applied between 
the shoulders improves the tone and adds to the mu>eu- 
lar vigor and Btrength of them all. If you ail. 
you affect the whole. The sympathy existi 
them may be seen in the movement of the arms and the 
motion of the diaphragm and lungs. To swii 
arms necessitates an accelerated and incr a of 

the lungs and diaphragm in biv hen 

the arms improves the tone igor of all the D 

cles concerned in respiration. 

So the motory nerves of the lower extremities and 
those of the kidneys, the reproductive organs, and the 
large intestine, are all united into a sympathetic pL 
in the small of the back. In nervous diseases, which 
are so common, there is a lack of healthy tone in the 
nerves of motion of these parts, and an over-sensitiveness 
in the nerves of feeling. This will be found to be a 
uniform characteristic in the pathology of nervous inva- 
lidism. To restore the harmony is to effect a cure. This 
can be sooner done by the judicious and persevering use 
of the psychopathic treatment than by any other reme- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 109 

dial agency. It is better than all narcotics and nervines 
that were ever prescribed. 

From what has been said of the relation of the spinal 
nerves to the involuntary vital processes and movements, 
it must be evident that the magnetism of the hand, 
applied to the spine, will affect all the internal organs. 
By the friction of the hand along the spinal column, an 
invigorating, life-giving influence is imparted to all the 
organs within the cavity of the trunk. The hand of 
kindness, of purity, and of sympathy, applied here, by 
friction combined with gentle pressure, is a singularly 
efficient remedy for the morbid condition of the internal 
organs. It is a medicine that is always pleasant to 
take. 

The diseased condition of the truncal organs is often 
indicated by tenderness in the corresponding parts of 
the spine. The spine at certain points will be found 
inflamed and congested. The psychopathic treatment 
will almost alwa} T s be sufficient to relieve and remove 
the morbid state of the parts. To pour water, of the 
temperature of about one hundred degrees, along the 
whole length of the spine, commencing in the neck, and 
delaying at the inflamed points, will relieve the con- 
gestion. It may be poured in a small stream from the 
nose of a pitcher. The philosophy of its action is plain. 
In all congestions there is a tightening up of the tissue. 
Now it is known that heat expands and relaxes all sub- 
stances in nature, with only one known exception, — the 
thawing of ice. "We see a thousand illustrations of this 
law. The warm water applied to the congested and 
tightened fibres and tissue of the inflamed parts expands 
and relaxes them, and thus restores the obstructed cir- 
culation. Still further, we know from our frequent 
experience, that the reaction which follows holding the 



110 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

hands or feet in warm water is cooling. They soon feel 
cooler than before their immersion in it. So it is in the 
application of warm water to the spine. The reaction 
which follows plunging the feet in cold water increases 
vital action and warms them. It will be found, in 
harmony with this philosophy, that* warm water is more 
effectual in allaying inflammations than cold water. 
Inflamed eyes are greatly aggravated by the application 
of cold water ; but are relieved and soothed by tepid 
water. To understand nature's laws is to be invested 
with power to cure disease. For there can be no mirac- 
ulous cure of the sick. No restoration can be effected 
by men or angels, in contravention of the uniform and 
undeviating laws of our being. 

The small of the back or loins is the weak or strong 
point in every person. This part of the spine is the 
symbol of strength. It is an important centre of volun- 
tary motion, and should always receive a due share of 
attention in the psychopathic treatment of disc; 
Nearly three hundred muscles are directly or indirectly 
connected with the motions of which the small of the 
back is the pivotal centre. Persons who are strong, and 
whose muscular system is vigorous and well-balam 
never complain of weakness here, while invalids will 
almost always be found to suffer from weakness and 
pain in this part of the bod}'. The magnetism of the 
hand applied here is the most efficient remedy in nature, 
especially when accompanied by the kneading and 
upward pressure of the abdomen. A large proportion 
of chronic diseases are immedially relieved and ulti- 
mately cured by this simple treatment. 



ME XT AT. MEDICINE. Ill 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE APPLICATION OF THE PSYCHIC AND MAGNETIC 
FORCE TO THE EPIGASTRIUM, AND THE NATURE 
AND CURE OF NERVOUS DISEASES. 

The Pit of the Stomach a Vital Centre — Effect of a Blow here — 
It is Life's Last Retreat and Citadel — Accumulation of Nerve- 
Force here the Characteristic of Nervous Debility — Patho- 
logical State described — Robbery of the other Organs — State 
of the Diaphragm — The Stomach — Liver — Spleen — The 
Heart — Cause of their enfeebled Action — How to Effect a 
Cure — Directions in the Application of Magnetism to the 
Epigastric Region — Their Rationale and Efficiency — Imme- 
diate and Remote Effects, 

THE epigastrium, or, as it is usually called, the pit 
of the stomach, is one of the most important nerve 
centres in the whole organism, and must claim special 
attention in the administration of Medical Psychology 
as a remedial agency. In this region is situated the 
semilunar ganglion and solar plexus, one of the largest 
in the great sympathetic nerve, which has been properly 
called the nerve of organic life. The presence of this 
large ganglion and plexus of, nerves, which lie just 
under the diaphragm, and behind the stomach, consti- 
tutes, if not an independent, yet a most important vital 
centre. This is the reason why a blow on the pit of the 
stomach sometimes destroys life. In the process of 
dying, the vital force lingers here after it has u in; 
from the rest of the body. It often remains warm long 
after the rest of the organism has become cold and 



112 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

motionless. It is also the focal point of spiritual influx, 
and is singularly sensitive to the action of the psychic 
force. These facts and phenomena clearly indicate the 
essential relation of this region to the functions of or- 
ganic life. In a large proportion of chronic diseases, 
especially those attended with nervous debility and 
prostration, it will be found to be the weak point, and 
will demand particular attention. In these cases tho 
nerve-life seems to be concentrated here, and it becomes 
the focal point of their existence. One nervous invalid 
declared that she lived only in the pit of the stomach. 
Both the nerves of motion and of sensibility arc acutely 
alive. There is unusual nervous heat at this point, and 
great tenderness to the touch, the patient being her. 
sensitive as to be able to bear scarcely the weight of the 
finger, not because a slight pressure occasions absolute 
pain, but the parts shrink from the touch, like the le: 
of the sensitive plant, and there is an unpleasant feeling 
as if the vital spark was allocated. In 1* 

a slight blow would extinguish the Same of life. The 
nerves of motion act spontaneously, and occasion an 
incessant crawling of the muscular fibres, and a ncr\ 
tremor, which is aggravated by the least excitement. 
This accumulation of the nerve-force in the pit of the 
stomach robs the adjacent organs of their rightful sh 
and weakens their physiological movements. The dia- 
phragm loses its contractility and convexity, so that the 
respiration is enfeebled and the breathing is short and 
unsatisfactory. The stomach is enfeebled in its action, 
its vermicular motion soon gives out from a lack of ner- 
vous force, and indigestion is the result. The action of 
the heart is weakened and quickened and, under excite- 
ment, the patient suffers from palpitation. The liver is 
inflamed and congested, and, from a lack of vital force, 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 113 

performs its appropriate functions imperfectly. There 
is usually, also, a pain in the left side, which occasions 
the patient great anxiety, as it is erroneously supposed 
to be a disease of the heart, but it is in fact only an in- 
flammation and enlargement of the spleen, which arises 
from a diminished supply of its nerve-force. 

This will be found to be an accurate diagnosis of a 
large share of chronic ailments, especially those of a 
nervous type. The nature of the trouble will unerringly 
indicate the method of cure. In these cases the condi- 
tion of the diaphragm, and the shortness of the breath, 
the enfeebled action of the stomach and heart, the slug- 
gish state of the liver and spleen, and their enlargement, 
are effects, and we must find jand remove the cause. 
The pathological condition arises solely from the con- 
centration and accumulation of the nerve-force in the 
epigastrium, and the consequent robbery of the adjacent 
organs of their proper share. The cure must necessarily 
consist in restoring the harmony in the distribution of 
the nerve life. Its accumulated stores must be dis- 
persed from the pit of the stomach and its excess dimin- 
ished to supply the lack of it in the other organs. This 
dear and simple. It only remains to point out the 
best method of cure. Bear in mind, that the diseased 
condition I have described is not an isolated case, but in 
all its essential features is the pathological state of a 

ge proportion of chronic invalids. There may be 
found slight modifications of it in some nervous patients, 
but the treatment that will answer for one will be equally 
applicable to all cases. 

Commence by inducing the impressible state of the 

patient by the process previously described. Treat the 

brain and spine as before recommended. Then place 

the right hand on the pit of the stomach. It may be 

8 



114 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

placed in actual contact, or, in extremely sensitive cases, 
it may be held only quite near the parts. There will 
usually be found in these cases an inflamed and tender 
point in the spine, and sometimes an outward curvature, 
just back of the stomach. Place the left hand on this 
part of the spinal column, with a gentle pressure for- 
ward, so as to throw the body into an erect attitude. 
While the right hand remains upon the pit of the stom- 
ach, after a while, remove the left hand to the region of 
the lumbar plexus or small of the back* After a few 
minutes, make dispersive pas>cs with the right hand 
over the hypochondriac region or the parts of the abdo- 
men on each side of the epigastrium. This will attract 
the accumulated magnetic life from the pit of the stom- 
ach to the organs each side of it. You have now 
afforded relief. But more renin ins to be done to effect 
a radical and lasting cure, Place the left hand on the 
right side, just under the right Bhoulder, and as far down 
as the ribs extend. Place the right hand on the left 
side of the patient just under the ribs, near the end of 
the stomach and spleen. Then press with the hands, so 
as to effect a movement of the organs situated between 
the hands. Then change the position of the hands, the 
left hand being placed upon the back of the patient on 
the left side, and the right hand more in front near the 
liver and right end of the stomach. Repeat this several 
times. This alternate pressure effects a movement of 
the diaphragm, the liver, the stomach and the spleen. 
It will be found a sovereign remedy for inactivity of 
those organs. It is an invariable law, that the motion 
of a part determines the nervous and vital forces to the 
part moved. The movement of the hand in the act of 
opening and shutting it calls the vital force to that 
extremity. So of the arm, the foot, or the leg. By 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 115 

the motion of the organs which have been weakened in 
(heir action by a want of nerve-force, occasioned by its 
accumulation in the epigastrium, the vital force is deter- 
mined to them. It attracts the excessive supply of 
nerve-life in the pit of the stomach into their own 
nerves, and thus improves at once their tone and vigor. 
Xo single treatment is of greater value than this, or 
better adapted to a large class of chronic diseases. It 
is oftentimes astonishing, and seems, to those who do not 
understand the laws governing the case, to border on the 
miraculous, to witness the rapid improvement that uni- 
formly follows this apparently simple treatment. A 
single treatment often effects a permanent cure. I 
could give instances of immediate restoration to health 
of cases deemed hopeless for years, by the intelligent 
application of this method of cure, that might be deemed 
incredible, except b} T those who personally knew the 
facts, — cases that have occurred not only in my own 
practice, but in that of many others. We are not always 
to judge of the therapeutic value of Medical Psychology 
from the immediate and visible effects of a single treat- 
ment, or the employment of it for a few days. Some- 
times a patient receives an impulse in an upward course, 
which results in a complete restoration to health, when 
the immediate effects are not so obvious. Instantane- 
ous and apparently miraculous cures are not always the 
greatest cures effected by the psychopathic treatment. 
Patients are often found where the forces of life and the 
tendency to dissolution are so evenly balanced as to be 
in equilibrium. A feather's weight would turn the scale 
either way. The tendency of the nerve-force to the 
epigastrium is one of the phenomena of the process of 
dying. This is the last citadel in which life takes refuge 
from the invader, the last fortress that surrenders. A 



116 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

single application of the psychic and magnetic force 
turns the scale, reinforces the vital powers, invigorates 
the reaction of nature against the disease, and inaugu- 
rates a change which results in a radical cure, yet the 
immediate and visible effects may not be very obvious. 
Such cure3 are as miraculous as any that were ever 
wrought, and although thoy may not give a physician 
fame and wide-spread celebrity, no one should be dis- 
heartened if he cannot perform a cure which shall m 
nearer to a miracle than this. Nature, unaided, is often 
adequate to cure The patient gets well from the 

reaction of the vital force against the dick ate, 

when the ris m B, the healing power of 

nature, is not interfered with, and obstructed in its 
action, by When nature requires 

istanoe, nothing seen ipted to render that 

aid than this mode of treatment. In this numci 
class of diseases, m< m to have but little san- 

ative value. They often produce directly oppo 
effects from those desired and intended. The psychic 
and magnetic force, properly applied and directed, is not 
a mere temporary stimulus, but imparts the living prin- 
ciple itself, and adds to the vital stock of the patient. 
I deem the principles relating to the pathology and cure 
of nervous diseases, so briefly unfolded in this chapter 
and the preceding, of great value. They contain the 
undeveloped germ of a volume. The}' place the subject 
in a new light. The} r are confessedly the most difiicult 
class of diseases to control under the ordinary systems 
of medication. The physician expects only to relieve 
the morbid symptoms by his prescriptions. But the 
psychopathic treatment is peculiarly adapted to them, 
and goes to the root of the rnalady. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 117 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ABDOMINAL MUSCLES AND THE MECHANICAL 
DISPLACEMENT OF THE INTERNAL OKGANS- 

Theory of Chronic Diseases — Nature's Mode of Cure — Cause of 
the Prolapsed State of the Organs — How the Psychopathic 
Treatment removes it — T he Method of Treating the Abdominal 
and Pelvic Viscera — Philosophy of it — The Practice of Mes- 
mer and D'Eslon — Female Diseases — Their Cure — Commu- 
nication of Vital Force — Derivative Effects — Pathology oj 
Epilepsy — Nature's Sovereign Remedy for it, 

IT was a theoiy advocated with much zeal by Dr. 
Banning, several years ago, that nearly all chronic 
diseases originate in a mechanigal displacement, or 
falling down, of the organs within the cavity of the 
trunk. He supposed that there was no defect in the 
vital force ; bat, in chronic disease, the machinery was 
out of place, and consequently went wrong. It was a 
favorite maxim with him, "that it is not the steam, but 
the disturbed or broken engine that is at fault." I have 
no doubt of the substantial correctness of this theoiy, at 
least so far as it relates to the effect of the displacement 
of the organs, but should differ widely from him in 
regard to the proper remedy. Instead of applying arti- 
"ficial support, in the use of the various forms of abdomi- 
nal supporters, which at best afford only a temporary 
relief, with an aggravation of the trouble in the end, it 
would be nature's method, rind the remedy dictated by 
common sense, to go to work to strengthen and improve 



118 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

the tone of the muscular bands, composing the walls of 
the abdomen, and which are the natural supports of the 
organs. If these muscles lose their health}' tone, and 
become relaxed, exhibiting a soft and flabby state, all 
the organs are prolapsed by their own gravity. The 
heart and lungs, the diaphragm, the stomach, the liver, 
the spleen, and the bowels, by their gravitating tench 
downward, press upon the pelvic viscera, and posh tl 
down also. It is plain to every one that the organs 
thus misplaced cannot properly perform the physiologi- 
cal functions assigned them in the animal economy. It 
is not uncommon to find patients where there is little 
or no organic disease, but a genera) lack of physical and 
muscular force, owing to a loss of harmony between the 
motoiy and sensory nerves. The abdominal muscles are 
relaxed, and lose their healthy contractility, and all 
the truncal organs are projected downward in a m 
crowding one upon the- other, and thus interfering with 
their normal action. This is the pathological state of 
three-fourths of chronic invalids, and of females llicr 
a still larger fraction. 

This mechanical displacement of the organs is can- 
immediately, by the weakness of the abdominal mnsc 
and this may be occasioned by a general loss of vital 
tone, and of the muscular tissue in particular. So far 
as this is the case, the psychopathic treatment will be 
found a sovereign remedy. For it is an admitted truth 
that one person can impart vital force to another who 
lacks it. This is just as certain as that one body can 
receive heat from another possessing more of it and in 
contact with it. The vital magnetism of a good practi- 
tioner imparts to the organism of the patient a life- 
giving principle, call it by what name you please. To 
me, this has the force of a self-evident truth. The whole 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 119 

subject has been fully illustrated and proved in the 
previous work of the author, the " Mental Cure," and it 
is unnecessary to dwell upon it here. The psychopathic 
treatment, by improving the general vital tone of the 
patient, and augmenting everywhere the vital force, 
improves the state of the abdominal muscles. But the 
magnetism of the hands applied here is a specific for 
their relaxed and debilitated condition. It imparts a 
healthy tone to them at once, and restores their dimin- 
ished contractility. It affords to the parts a natural 
and healthy stimulus. 

Let the patient sit in an erect attitude, with the pit of 
the stomach thrown forward. Place one hand on the 
spine, back of the stomach, or on the small of the back, 
and request the patient to slowly raise the arms, as high 
as he can reach. This elevates the ribs, and the dia- 
phragm which is attached to them, and draws the mus- 
cular bands of the abdomen tense. Press the bowels up 
with the other hand. The arms are to be held in this 
elevated position only a moment, and then gently 
lowered. This alternate raising and lowering of the 
arms may be repeated several times. Friction may be 
applied to the abdomen, the hand always following the 
course of the large intestine or colon. That is, the 
movement must commence near the right groin, proceed 
upward to the top of the bowels, then across and down- 
ward. The bowels may be kneaded by pressing with 
the fingers on one side, and then with the ball of the 
hand on the opposite side, commencing with the lower 
part of the abdomen and proceeding upward to the 
iach. This agitates the contents of the stomach and 
intestinal canal, and assists their natural functions, and 
i^ the i" titute for their peristaltic or vermicular 

movement, of which there is generally a lack. It im- 



120 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

proves the tone of the abdominal muscles, for it is a 
law, as we have already seen, that the movement of a 
part determines the vital force to the part moved. The 
kneading of any of the muscles is one of the best ways of 
increasing both their size and vigor. It stimulates the 
nutritive vessels of the parts, and increases their growth. 
The physician's hand also imparts a subtle vital m 
netism and psychic force to the muscular tissue. While 
the treatment of the epigastrium or pit of the stom 
should always be of a gentle and tranquillizing chara 
here it may be more vigorous and stimulating, but n« 
too violent. This treatment, followed up, is a 
remedy for dyspepsia, inaction of the liver and kidn< 
for obstinate constipation, a fruitful source of dia 
and for the evils arising bom the mispl i of the 

internal organs. It is the effectual mode of treating all 
forms of female diseases and prolapsus of Hie pelvic 
vicsera, as it seems to have a special adaptation to 
part of the bod} r . It was a part of the method of D 
netizing employed by Mesmer and D'Esloq, to employ 
repeated pressure upon the hypochondriac and abdomi- 
nal regions. This was sometimes continued for hours. 
In my opinion it had more to do in effecting the cures 
wrought by them than any other feature of the proc 
which they used. It produces a powerful derivative 
effect, b} r determining the nerve-force from the brain, 
where it is usually in excess, downward to the 
that need it. By a proper treatment here, the must 
of the abdomen are restored to a healthy tone, the 
internal machinery is brought into proper p< and 

the organs resume a healthy functional activity. By 
simply placing the hands, one on the spine and the 
other over the organs within the abdominal or pelvic 
cavities, the subtle magnetic influence, differing in tl 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 121 

respect from the electric, which is confined to the surface, 
penetrates the tissue, passes from one hand to the other, 
or is absorbed as a healthy vital force and stimulus by 
the several organs. Rapid and often astonishing im- 
provement follows the application of this potent thera- 
peutic agent to this part of the organism. 

There is one disease impossible to cure by any medi- 
cine known to exist, for which it seems to be a specific. 
1 refer to epilepsy. This terrible disease seems to com- 
mence in the state of the bowels. The s^ymptoms of an 
ck are a peculiar sensation, first in the intestinal 
tube, and then in the stomach. This is a suspension of 
the vermicular movement peculiar to those organs, and 
then an inversion of the peristaltic motion. The nerve- 
force moves in the wrong direction, slowly moving up- 
ward through the intestinal canal to the stomach, and 
thence to the top of the brain. This inverted action of 
the nerves has been denominated the aura epileptica, 
and is accompanied by a strange morbid sensation com- 
mencing in some part of the intestinal canal, and grad- . 
uall}' ascending to the cerebrum. This progress the 
patient can trace in his own feelings. The rush of the 
blood to that part of the brain, occasioned by the accu- 
mulation there of the nerve-force, presses upon the brain, 
and the patient loses all consciousness and muscular 
power and suddenly falls as if shot. The trouble aris- 
ing from a suspension of the natural peristaltic move- 
ment of the parts, and the upward movement of the 
nerve-force, the cure must consist in finding a substitute 
for the one and thus preventing the other. A quick 
pressure of the fingers on one side of the abdomen, fol- 
lowed by a pressure of the hand upon the opposite side, 
and the same alternate pressure applied also to the right 
and left end of the stomach, is the best substitute nature 



122 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

has provided for their vermicular movement. This 
arrests at once the upward tendency of the nerve- force, 
and wards off the fit. The patient can do this himself 
on feeling the symptoms of an attack, or some member 
of the family may perform this office. I have never 
known a case where it would not prevent an attack, 
and if followed up effect a lasting cure. It is nature's 
remedy, and, consequently, the most efficient remedial 
agency. Where all medicines are confessedly powerless 
to afford relief this will Bucceed, if the disease lias not 
passed to the incurable s1 Where it has reached its 

ultimate termination, in what Dr. Winslow denomina 
a " retrograde metamorphosis M of the cerebral tissue, or 
in plainer language, an actual softening of the brain, 
there is no cure for it. except the universal pan* 
death. Previous to this stage I have inner known it to 
fail. I have no disposition to sell the secret, but ftf 
impart it to the world. Whoever reads this is invited 
to try it the first opportunity which occurs. If it suc- 
ceeds, you have done a good work. If it fails, it will 
only do what all other remedies before it have done. 



MENTAL MEDICI y 123 



CHAPTER XV. 

CONDUCTORS AND THEIR USE IN MEDICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

The Nerves are Conducting Wires — Identity of Magnetism and 
the Nervous Force — The Fluid 'Theory Exploded— How to 

affect an Organ through its Nerve — Illustrated by Sciatic 
Rheumatism — Why the Foot goes to Sleep — Effect of a Blow 
upon the Ulnar Nerve — Importance of Understanding the 
atomy of the Nervous System — Illustrations — The Trifa- 
cial Nerve — How to Cure Neuralgia of the Face and Teeth — 
The Optic Nerve — Amaurosis — Instant Relief for Inflamed 
Eyes — Treatment of Deafness — Ear-ache — The Pneumogas- 
tric Nerve — Its General Distribution — Its Function — How to 
Affect any Part or Organ through it — Vital Magnetism Con- 
trolled by the Will — Goes where it is Sent — Also spontaneously 
where Needed — Communicable through all Substances — Can be 
imparted any Distance — Its Rate of Progress. 

THE nerves are the appointed and natural conductors 
of the peculiar force, that is generated in the brain 
and spinal column, to the various parts and organs of the 
body. By dividing the nerves, so as to interrupt this 
communication with the cerebral centres, the functions 
of the organs are at once suspended. This nerve-force 
is, therefore, essential to their physiological movements, 
and to the discharge of their oflice in the animal econ- 
omy. The agent employed in producing the phenomena 
of what is called magnetism is either identical with the 
nerve-force, or is analogous to it, and is, also, conducted 
to the organs through their appropriate nerves, and 
affects their vital movements. It was formerly supp< 



124 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

that the nerves transmitted a subtle fluid called the 
animal spirits, and, subsequently, the nerve-aura, which 
flowed along their course to the different organs, anal- 
ogous to the mode in which what was supposed to be an 
electrical fluid was conducted along the wire. But the 
fluid theory has been abandoned in explaining the phe- 
nomena of electricity, and also in physiology, in illus- 
trating the functions of the nervous system. The new 
doctrine of force is now introduced into physiology, as 
well as into the science of the imponderable agents of 
heat, light, electricity, and magnetism- The idea of a 
nerve-aura, or fluid, is exchanged for the more satisfac- 
tory and rational one of a vibratory force that is trans- 
mitted by the nerves to the organs, in the same or sim- 
ilar way in which an undulatorv wave is transmitted 
through the telegraphic wire. Bear in mind that the 
nerve-force and vital magnetism are the Bame, and the 
nerves are the proper conductors of both. Oftentii 
you can affect an organ through the nerve loading to it 
better than by placing the hand in immediate coir 
with the part. The morbid state of an organ may be, 
and often is, the result of an abnormal state of the 
nerve quite remote from the organ itself. The negative 
swelling of the feet, the ankles, and the calves of the 
leg, is often caused by a congested and strangulated 
state of the large nerve in the hip, called the sciatic 
nerve, and, also, of the nerve accompanying the femoral 
artery. By removing the inflamed state of the nerves in 
the hip and in the inside of the thigh, the lameness and 
swelling in the limb below come right of their own ac- 
cord. In this way I have seen a limb restored, in five 
minutes, that was so sensitive and powerless that it could 
not be moved. The foot may be sensibly affected also, 
by transmitting the psychic and magnetic influence to it 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 125 

aloug the sciatic nerve in the thigh. We know that 
pressure upon the trunk of a nerve affects the sensation 
of the parts to which it ramifies, however distant they 
may be from the place of pressure. When pressure is 
made upon the sensory and motory nerves of the lower 
extremities, as in sitting in one position for a length of 
time upon a hard bench, we experience in the foot the 
peculiar sensation called going to sleep. It affects both 
its motion and sensibility. By a slight blow or pressure 
upon the ulnar nerve in the elbow you feel a sensation, 
which all understand, in the little finger and on one side 
of the ring finger. 

In a way analogous to this, you can transmit a mag- 
netic influence to the various organs of the body through 
their appropriate nerves, which are a sort of telegraphic 
wire. He who makes use of Medical Psycholog} r , for the 
cure of disease, should be so fully acquainted with the 
anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, that he 

affect any painful or diseased part through its nerve 
conductor. Knowledge, here especially, will be power. 
II should be as familiar with the subject as he is with 
the alphabet. To illustrate what may be done in this 

. it* you wish to relieve that painful affection, neu- 
ralgia of the face and teeth, sometimes called tic doulou- 
will be of little use to apply the hands to the 
face. The pain in the face and t colli is an effect; the 
in the state of the trifacial nerve, the fifth pair 
of cranial nerves. This is one of the largest of the 
dial nerves, and is divided into three branches, one 
going to the eye, forehead, and nose, which are of 

in the disease mentioned above; and another 

goii upper jaw and teeth, while the other branch 

. the tongne, and the teeth of the 

lower jaw. By wetting the finger in water, and placing 



126 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

it in the hollow just back of the tip of the ear, and 
cooling the inflamed state of the nerve there, you will 
often relieve, in one minute, the most excruciating neu- 
ralgic pain of the face and teeth. You thus remove the 
cause, and the effect ceases. It is always easy to do 
anything we know how to do. 

The eye may be affected through the optic nerve, the 
second pair of nerves proceeding from the brain. It 
passes from the interior of the cranium, through an 
opening in the base of the skull, called the 
opticum, to the cavity for the eye. It pierces the coats 
of the eye and is expanded upon the retina. It is dis- 
ease of this nerve which occasions the gradual loss of 
sight called amo or gutta It is a loss of 

power in the nerve, for which the psychopathic treat- 
ment is the best remedy. In its fust stages, before the 
complete paralysis of the nerve, it restores it- healthy 
tone, and sometimes opens the eyes of the blind. In 
painful inflammations of the eye there is a tender spot 
half way between the ear and the angle of the eye. A 
slight pressure here will be painful. By wetting the 
hand in water and applying it there, so as to cool the 
inflamed nerve, the inflammation of the eye will subside 
and disappear as if by magic. I have seen the most 
painful inflammation of the eye fully relieved and cured, 
in less than five minutes, by this simple treatment. You 
remove the trouble from the root. Remedies applied to 
the eye itself have but little effect. You must remove 
the cause in the abnormal state of the nerve, and then 
the effect will cease of itself. This is a general law, of 
which we should never lose sight. 

The seventh pair of nerves, called portio mollis, enters 
the hard portion of the temporal bone, at the internal 
auditory opening, and is distributed upon the internal 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 127 

ear. You may affect the nerve of the ear just back of 
the zygomatic process of the temporal bone. Mag- 
netism applied here will restore the hearing, sometimes 
instantly, where the deafness is occasioned by a loss of 
power in the nerve. Where there is an inflamed state 
of the membrane of the tympanum I have known it to 
be removed, and also the loss of hearing resulting from 
it, and likewise otalgia or ear-ache, by applying the mag- 
netism of the hand wet in water just in front of the ear, 
at the angle of the superior maxillary, or upper jaw- 
bone. This will frequently relieve the trouble at once. 

One of the most important nerves for the use of the 
ps}'chopathic physician is called the 2 meumo 9 asir ^ G 
nerve. It seems to be the nerve through which the 
mind acts upon every organ of the body, by which we 
may convey a mental stimulus to them, and thus affect 
the action of their involuntaiy functions. This office 
has been assigned to the great sympathetic ; but this 
influences the involuntary processes of organic life, 
while through the pneumogastric nerve our will-power 
may modify the action of the internal organs, and send 
a spiritual force to the stomach, or liver, or kidneys. It 
constitutes, with its numerous branches and ramifica- 
tions, a complete system of telegraphic lines, through 
which the mind of the patient, when in the impressible 
state, may affect the plvysiological action of any organ 
in the body. Through this nerve the mental and mag- 
netic force may also act upon any part of the organic 
structure. The pneumogastric nerve is peculiarly 
adapted to this magnetic telegraphing, It proo 
etty from the brain through the foramen lacer 
the opening for the jugular vein, and is the tenth pair 
of cerebral It is widely distributed, sending 

branches to the larynx, pharynx, oesophagus, lungs. 



123 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

spleen, pancreas, liver, stomach, and intestines. From 
its wandering character, it was formerly called the par 
vagum. No telegraphic system could be more complete 
or better fitted for the use of the magnetizer. By plac- 
ing the hand on the neck back of the angle of the infe- 
rior maxillary or lower jaw-bone, you are sufficiently 
near it. From this point you can affect any organ in 
the body and in any way you please, by directing your 
silent will-force to the place, and calling the attention 
of the patient to the part }'ou wish to affect. In this 
way you can modify the action of the stomach, or the 
liver, or the respiratory organs, or the bowels and pelvic 
viscera. You can increase or diminish vital action. 
You can even warm the feet, or allay inflammation in 
any part. In a few minutes you can so affect the action 
of the skin as to throw the patient into a gentle perspi- 
ration, and cure an incipient fever. Through this im- 
portant nerve, especially if the patient is in the impres- 
sible condition, you can produce any physiological effect 
at will. All these phenomena I have witnessed, and 
produced, a hundred times. They are not to me theo- 
retical speculations, but demonstrated and accomplished 
facts. Where there is a lack of vital force in any organ, 
it is rendered negatively receptive, and when your hand 
is applied to the pneumogastric nerve, it attracts to 
itself your living magnetism thus imparted. It app* 
to act from a kind of instinctive preference, and the 
influence goes where it is most needed, without any 
effort of will on } T our part to give it direction. It goes 
to the weakened and negative part as spontaneously as 
water runs down an inclined plane. But the psychic 
and magnetic force which goes forth from you is a part 
of your living self, and is always under the control of 
your volitions. You say to it, Go, and it goeth. It 



M E X T A L U E D I C I X E . 1 29 

obeys the silent or expressed command of your volitions. 
It passes, like a disembodied spirit, through all known 
substances, without apparent obstruction. The clothing 
does not isolate the patient, in the least, from its subtle 
influence. A person may be made to feel the influence 
of the hand, when it is not in contact with him, but held 
several feet away. The ordinary clothing worn by a 
patient is no obstruction to its effective application. It 
can be communicated from one person to another inde- 
pendent of spacial distance. I have made experiments 
with it at a distance of more than four hundred miles, 
and at lesser distances hundreds of times. Like spirit 
itself, it seems to be free from all material limita- 
tions. 

It is worthy of remark that the nerve influence, or the 
peculiar force which the nerves communicate to the vari- 
ous organs, is not transmitted with the almost instanta- 
neous rapidity of light and electricity, but requires time 
in sending it to an organ through the nerve, proportioned 
somewhat to the degree of sensitiveness of the patient. 
In sending an influence to the feet to warm them, the 
subject will be able many times, in his consciousness, to 
trace its progress as it passes along the route until at 
length it is felt in the loins and sciatic nerve, from 
which it soon reaches its destination in the lower ex- 
tremities. And what may seem to some remarkable, the 
operator himself can often trace its progress in the 
patient by his own sensations. This many persons will 
confirm by testimony drawn from their own experience. 
9 



130 MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE AGENT IN THE PSYCHOPATHIC TREATMENT, 
AND ITS RELATION TO THE VITAL FORCE. 

Theory of Mesmer — Discoveries of Reichenlach — The Odyllic 
Force — The Human Bod i/stals — Chemical 

Action — Friction develops flie Odyllic Force — Influence of 
Magnets on the Body — I Author — The 

present Theory of the Impondera Is — Two Age 

concerned in the Phenomena of Vital Magnetism — The Phys- 
ical Element — The Psychological — Their Relative Valve — 
Proof that the Mind is the Principal Agent — The Ultimate 
Root of Disease — Influence of the Mind over the i the 

Impressible State — Therapeutic Value of Magnetism — Its 
Proper Name, 

WHOEVER administers medicines for the cure of 
disease ought to have some adequate knowledge 
of the chemical nature and properties <>f the BObstai 

thus employed. So, in the practice of Medical Psychol- 
ogy as a therapeutic agency, it is well to possess -ome 
understanding, some definite idea of the nature of the 
subtle agent which is the cause of the remarkable phe- 
nomena so often witnessed, and which lias been demon- 
strated to possess such sanative virtue. It was the 
theory of Mesmer, who, though not the discoverer of 
animal magnetism, revived the practice of it, and was 
the means of calling the attention of the scientific 
world to it, that the magnetic sleep was produced by a 
subtle fluid universally diffused through space, being the 
medium of a reciprocal influence between the celestial 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 131 

bodies, the earth, and living beings. If this were true, 
and there can be little doubt that there is a basis of sub- 
stantial fact in the hypothesis, it would account for the 
influence the heavenly bodies have ever been supposed 
to exert upon mankind and their destiny. The phenom- 
ena of gravitation and chemical affinity here find their 
explanation also. It would have been equally true, 
and, in fact, a higher verity, if he had taught that by 
means of this subtle agent the realm of spiritual exist- 
ences could exert an influence upon those in this lower 
plane of life ; for magnetism, in its wide extent and 
varied applications, is the science of the spiritual world. 
Mesmer also taught that this subtle agent insinuated it- 
self into the substance of the nerves upon which it had, 
therefore, a direct operation ; it was capable of being 
communicated from one body to another, both animate 
and inanimate, and that at a considerable distance with- 
out the intervention of any intermediate substance, and 
exhibited in the human bocby some properties analogous 
to those of the loadstone or artificial magnet. From 
this latter circumstance he gave the name of animal 
magnetism to it, which it has ever since retained. 

The Baron Reichenbach, in his researches and experi- 
ments in magnetism, discovered b} 7 means of his sick 
sensitives, or partially developed clairvoyants, that 
magnets and crystals emit rays of a mild and beautiful 
light, which were visible to certain persons, both those 
diseased and those in health, in a totally darkened room. 
The flame from a horseshoe-magnet of ninety pounds' 
force was three or four feet in length. This newly - 
covered force, which he denominated otbjle, was suppos 
to confirm the theory of Mesmer. lie also ascertained 
that a similar flame streamed forth from certain parts of 
the human body, especially the hands, the pit of the 



132 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

stomach, the eyes, and the lips or mouth. This influ- 
ence was supposed by him to be identical with that 
emanating from magnets, and to have an important 
relation to the vital force. But we are to bear in mind 
that this newly discovered force is not magnetism, but 
only associated with it, though distinct from it. This odyl- 
lic force was exhibited by magnets, crystals, plants, and 
in some degree by all material substances. It was 
found to be developed by electricity, gal van ism. beat and 
light, as also by friction and all chemical changes. And 
this fact may account for the influence all these agents 
have upon the vital force. It was developed by com- 
bustion, the combination of an acid and an alkali, and 
all the subtle chemical changes going on in the human 
body. He supposed it to be the agent in animal u 
netism, a view that met the concurrence of Dr. Gregory, 
and has been widely adopted. 

There is no doubt that magnets exert an influence on 
the human body. Mesmer asserted this, and Reichen- 
bach proved it. I have myself demonstrated this with a 
magnet of about seventy-live pounds' force. When 
passes are made with it, similar sensations are produced 
as w r hen the hand is employed. Even the magnetic sleep 
may be induced by it. As a therapeutic agent I have 
found it far more valuable than the electro-magnetic 
battery. When passes are made w T ith it, the influence of 
the hand is combined with it, and intensifies the effect. 
It may be emplo}'ed as a useful auxiliary, sometimes, in 
reinforcing the influence of the operator. But many 
patients do not like it, and some feel a repugnance to it. 
It seems to them, to use their own expression, a coarser 
kind of magnetism. It lacks the more subtle psycholog- 
ical or spiritual element. I met with one extremely 
nervous and sensitive patient, who could not bear to 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 133 

have it disarmed in the room. It well-nigh threw her 
into convulsions. There are cases where its influence is 
grateful, and operates favorably. 

Xo doubt the discovery of the od}'llic force was a step 
in the right direction towards a correct apprehension of 
the nature of the agent producing the phenomena of 
magnetism. But it required the new doctrine of force, 
reeentty introduced into science, to fully explain it. 
The fluid theory has now been discarded, as inadequate 
to explain the phenomena of the imponderable agents. 
Eveiything is now explained by the theory of undulation 
or vibration. It is even introduced into both phj-siology 
and psychology. Whether the varied phenomena of 
beat, light, electricity and magnetism are produced by 
the undulation of a different medium, or are only the 
different vibratory movement of the same universally 
diffused medium, is not positively settled. 

It is ruy own opinion, that in the phenomena of animal 
magnetism, both those exhibited in the ordinary experi- 
ments with it, and the sanative results of its employment 
in healing the sick, two distinct agencies are concerned, 
— the one material or odyllic, the other psychological or 
spiritual. Both are necessary to the highest results, but 
are not of equal value. They may be combined in dif- 
ferent degrees in the organization of the operator. If a 
person has, in ever so large a measure, onl} T the physical 
or material element and influence, but lacks the mental 
and spiritual force, he will accomplish but little in the 
cure of disease. For the gift of healing is more a spirit- 
ual endowment than any mere material and physical 
force, like that exhibited by the magnet or the galvanic 
battery. The material element may not be unimportant ; 
it certainly is not so ; but it is not the chief thing. For 
an animal, as a horse or a dog, may exhibit to a sensi- 



134 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

tive the oclyllic flame, and they may impart an influence 
that may favorably affect the vital force and produce 
sanative results, as has been proved by experience, but 
they lack the spiritual element. There is no doubt that 
man can magnetize animals. We see hundreds of exhi- 
bitions of this. Animals may also magnetize human 
beings. But a good practitioner of magnetism, as a 
curative agency, must possess something more than 
animal magnetism. One proof that the mind is the 
principal agent is found in the fact that when one Ifl in 
a state of great mental exaltation his magnetic power 
is largely increased. The greater the augmentation of 
our mental and emotional excitement, if it be of an ele- 
vating character, the more marked will be the phenomena 
produced, lie who has the highest degree of psycholog- 
ical force, and possesses the greatest tact in managing 
and controlling the mind of a patient, will be the most 
skilful and BUCCessftll in curing disease. The ditto 
root of every morbid condition of the organic functions 
may be traced to a disturbance or inharmony of the 
spiritual nature in man, and of the vital force, an imma- 
terial and imponderable principle. Disease being in its 
primary cause, imponderable and spiritual, a psycholog- 
ical force is best adapted to its radical removal. 

The idea of a nervous or magnetic fluid must be given 
up, and the sooner our minds are freed from it the bet- 
ter. There may be a nervous force, but it is a force, and 
not a fluid. Neither the nerves nor the muscles are a 
force, but the instruments of a power distinct from 
themselves. The brain and nerves are the organ of the 
mind, or the medium through which a spiritual force 
acts upon and into the material organism, and influences 
its functional activities. In the magnetic state, the 
conscious impressible condition, the patient's mind or 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 135 

spirit, acting through the brain and nerves, may affect 
any and every organ in the body ; and the mind of 
another person, either in this or another world, may aid 
in producing and intensifying the effect. Mind or spirit 
is the ruling principle in the bodily organism, and in all 
nature. It is the only causal agency. The changes of 
matter are only passive effects. Some spiritual force is 
the primal cause. What we call nature, the world, the 
universe, is animated by an all-pervading, ever-present 
spiritual life, which is the unseen cause of all its visible 
phenomena. Spirit is everywhere the life of matter, 
and the force underlying all its movements, in the earth 
beneath and the heavens above. In the cure of disease 
by the psychopathic treatment, we should have a bound- 
less confidence in spiritual aid, and an undoubting faith 
in the power of mind over matter. 

Whatever view we may take as to the nature of the 
subtle agent which goes under the name of animal mag- 
netism, there is no room to doubt that it sustains an 
intimate relationship to the vital force, and must from 
this circumstance, when its laws are better understood, 
become the great remedy for disease, if not supplanting, 
yet taking precedence over all others. I prefer to call 
it by the more appropriate name of vital magnetism. 
But the name is not a matter of weighty importance, if 
it be at all appropriate and expressive of its nature. 



136 MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

INANIMATE OBJECTS AND THEIR USE IN THE 
CURE OF DISEASE. 

Communication of the Psychic Influence to various Substances — 
Their Influence iipon the Psychometer — Amulets and Charms 

— Case treated by Dr. Gregory with a pair of Gloves — In- 
fluence of an Autograph Letter — Water a Conductor and Re- 
tainer of the Psyrhic Force — Testimony of Gregory — 
ments of the Author — /loir to Communicate it to Water — Its 
Peculiar Taste — Opinion of Ihltutze — A Statement of Farts 

— It can be made to Produce the Specific Effects of any Med* 
icine — A PJiysicia7is Mental Sphere affects the Operation of 
his Medicines — The Power of Suggestion — Effect of a Hot 
opathic Pill — Suggestion more Potent than Drugs — Case in 
Boston — Irrationality of Drug Medication — Substitute/or it 

— Self- Limitation of Disease. 

IT has been found that the odyllic and psychic influ- 
ence may be imparted to various inanimate and 
inorganic substances, which will retain it for an indefinite 
length of time. Our clothing, the houses we dwell in, 
the beds on which we sleep, and every object we handle, 
or that comes in contact with our persons, as has been 
before remarked, is impregnated with our bodily and 
mental effluvia. This emanating sphere pervades, and, 
as it were, animates these otherwise inanimate objects 
with our plrysical and spiritual life. And when held in 
the hand by a good sympathetic clairvoyant or psy- 
chometer, they affect him with our states, and give him 
a perception of our character, even after the lapse of 



MENTAL MEDICI XE. 137 

many years. We leave the impress of our life upon 
everything around us, and the psychometric sense is 
adequate to read the record. Various objects may be so 
pervaded with our psychic influence as sensibly to affect 
another person, especially when in the impressible state. 
This is the philosophy of amulets and charms. Their 
influence, after having been charged with the psychic 
and odyllic force of another, is far from being wholly 
imaginary. It may be as real as any of the phenomena 
of chemistry. These objects, worn about the person, 
exert a secret, and sometimes, in the case of persons of 
much sensitiveness, a powerful influence. Dr. Gregory 
mentions the case of a lady whom he treated for some 
disease, and who afterwards removed from Scotland to 
Paris. While residing in the latter place he was 
accustomed, once" in a few days, to magnetize a pair of 
gloves and send to her. When she put them on, their 
influence would soon induce the somnambulic sleep, and 
as effectually as his own presence could do it. This 
might be pronounced the effect of imagination, had he 
not sent her occasionally a pair that he had not pre- 
viously charged with the psychic influence, and although 
she was not aware of this fact, they produced no effect. 
This established in his mind the reality and positive 
nature of the influence. Various substances may be 
used for this purpose. A letter written to a patient is 
highly charged with a psychological force. It produces 
a sanative influence, sometimes far beyond that of any 
medicine. It is pervaded with the life and soul principle 
of the writer. It is the best substitute for the personal 
sence of the physician himself. It opens a living 
apathetic communication between the patient and his 
medical adviser. l>ut of all known BUbstances, water 
j be the best adapted to this use. It is, at the 



138 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

same time, an excellent conductor and retainer of the 
psychic influence. The peculiar agent which is con- 
cerned in the production of the phenomena of Medical 
Psychology exhibits an affinity for water. This fluid is 
easily charged with the subtle force, and holds it for a 
long time. Mesmer asserted that water could be mag- 
netized, but the idea was met with ridicule, — the fate 
of nearly all new discoveries. The experiments of 
Eeichenbach confirmed the truth of it, and placed it on a 
scientific basis. And the late Dr. Gregory affirms that 
he has seen effects produced by magnetized water, that 
he should have deemed incredible if they had not taken 
place under his own observation. In the early part of 
my practice, the idea of producing any medicinal efll 
by water, otherwise than by the modes in which it is so 
efficiently employed in the water-cure Beemed extremely 
absurd. But at length 1 instituted a series of exp 
ments with it, continued through a year, which it is 
needless to take time in detailing, but which soon con- 
vinced me that marked effects could be produced by its 
use, both upon those whom I had previously thrown into 
the impressible state, and upon those whom I had not. 
The results of these experiments led to the conclusion 
that it might be made a useful auxiliary in the cure of 
disease by the psychopathic method. 

To charge a tumbler of water with the psychic influ- 
ence requires only a minute or two of time. This is as 
good as an hour. Place the glass upon the palm of the 
left hand, and bring the fingers and thumb around the 
sides. Then hold the palm of the right hand over the 
top, moving it occasionally, at the same time gazing into 
it, and directing your will-force to it. Y6u will feel a 
sensation of heat in the hollow of the hand which is held 
over the tumbler. The fingers of the positive hand may 



M E X T A L MEDICINE. 139 

be placed together and their points held near the water. 
This concentrates the psychic force of the hand into it. 
A magnet can also be employed, but the hand is to be 
preferred. 

The taste of water charged with this subtle agent is 
easily distinguished from that which has not been 
affected by it. More commonly it has a taste as if it 
contained a solution of bicarbonate of soda or saleratus. 
It is sometimes sweet, or acid, or bitter. It was the 
opinion of Deleutze that it would exhibit the taste of 
the medicine which the patient needed. All this may 
seem to some exceedingly ridiculous and unworthy of 
investigation. To offset this it may be proper to remark, 
that there are a thousand things in the orthodox prac- 
tice of medicine that are not only equally ridiculous, but 
dangerous besides, while the use of water ps}'chologi- 
cally medicated, like the infinitesimal doses of homoeop- 
athy, is entirely harmless. It is saying much in favor 
of any medicine that it will do no harm. I will state as 
a fact that I have made water to produce the specific 
effect of various medicines, and oftentimes to taste like 
them. It has been made to act like a narcotic, allaying 
nervous excitement, and inducing a healthy, tranquil 
p without any of the bad, reactive effects of mor- 
phine. It has been made to act as a gentle cathartic, 
unattended with the griping pain following the adminis- 
tration of podophyllum, and relieving long-continued 
constipation in a short time. A single dose has been 
known to effect a permanent cure. It can be made to 
as a tonic, an emetic, a sudorific, a diuretic, an 
alterative, or a stimulant. It may be used instead of 
liniment-, washes, lotion-, and gargles, and employed in 
way in which medicinal preparations are used. In 
fact, the will of the physician can give to it any direc- 



140 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

tion he pleases, and cause it to produce any specific 
effect upon the mind or tKxty of the patient. This will 
not seem wholly unreasonable, if we bear in mind that 
all material substances in nature, and those employed in 
medicine, contain an invisible or spiritual essence. In 
this lie their active properties and power of influencing 
the vital force. This subtle and imponderable sanative 
virtue may be controlled by the will, and imparted to 
water or other substances. Again, it is not improbable, 
but has the certainty of a demonstrated (act, that medi- 
cines are greatly aided in their effects by the mental 
sphere of those who administer them. To this is to be 
attributed no inconsiderable share of their influence. 
In .this way, bread pills, water drops, and homu'opathic 
pellets, have been attended with marked beneficial 
results. There is no doubt that what is called 8ug\ 
tion, that is, the announcement to the patient that a 
medicine will produ tain effe tly aids its 

action. When threatened with lever, some yea 
a homoeopathic practitioner left me a tew dro] tine- 

thing that tasted exactly like pure water, but gravely 
informed me that in one hour I should Bnd payself, without 
extra clothing, in a gentle perspiration. This predic- 
tion proved true, for I had faith in it. And this faith 
predisposed me to the result. Some years after I took 
the same again, and without the least effect. The con- 
clusion was a rational one, that my faith made me whole 
rather than the medicine. There is a law here, with 
regard to the influence of a physician's ps}'chic force 
over the medicines he prescribes and prepares, and the 
power of suggestion in giving direction to their opera- 
tion, that is worth}' of attention. Cases are known 
where medicines have been left, and the physician has 
informed the patient that a certain preparation would 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 141 

produce a particular effect, and even when the wrong 
medicine has been taken, it has produced the predicted 
results. I was informed of a case in Boston, where a 
physician left a preparation of morphine, informing the 
patient it would act as a sedative to relieve his pain, but 
the patient misunderstood the word for a cathartic, and, 
notwithstanding the medicine is powerfully astringent, 
his bowels moved three times before morning. 

It will be a great blessing to the world, if Heaven ever 
reveals to earth any substitute for the nauseous and 
noxious drugs that are now emplo}'ed in the practice of 
medicine. If we had never heard of the administration 
of active poisons for the cure of disease, and some one 
should come into our house, and propose to give our 
child a dose of arsenic, strychnine, corrosive sublimate, 
or prussic acid, to relieve it of its malady, we could not 
bring ourselves to consent to it. It would seem unrea- 
sonable, absurd, and perilous, and look too much like 
manslaughter. While we had often heard of persons 
being killed, both accidentally and intentionally, by 
the administration of poisons, if we were not familiar 
with their use as remedial agents, it would appear to us 
more absurd than the use of magnetized water. It is 
difficult to break up the long-continued habit of think- 
ing, instilled into mankind from their earliest childhood, 
that it is necessary to take something for every ailment. 
No matter where the disease is located, the stomach 
must pay the penalty by receiving the sickening and dis- 
gusting compound. If one has a lame foot, or a swollen 
joint, there is no reason or justice in punishing the 
stomach for it. If the patient cannot be cured of the 
false notion that he must take something, nothing can be 
more harmless, and as experiment has proved, nothing 
more efficient, than magnetized water or some simple 



142 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

preparation charged by the physician with his psycho- 
logical force. But these should be used only as auxil- 
iaries to aid the desired result. A very large proportion 
of diseases, at least four-fifths, as Dr. Bigelow has 
shown in his excellent little work on the subject, come to 
an end of their own accord by a principle of self-limit- 
ation. The duty of the physician is to watch the 
changes through which the disease p ind to aid if 

possible the reaction of the vital force against it. Noth- 
ing is better adapted to this end than the psychopathic 
treatment, combined witli the necessary hygienic regu- 
lations. I affirm, in all truth and soberness, that there 
are a multitude of diseases, deemed of a serious char- 
acter, any one of which I would rather have and let it 
run through its self-limited course, without interference 
and without obstruction, than to take into my system 
the standard remedies, in the shape of poisonous drugs, 
that are prescribed for them. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 143 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LAYV OF SYMPATHY IX ITS APPLICATION TO 
THE CURE OF MENTAL AND BODILY DISEASE. 

Mutual Sympathy between the Physician and Patient — Platonic 
in its Character — Sanative Effects of Sympathy — The Phe- 
nomena of Sympathy Exhibited by the Magnetic Sleep) — Com- 
munity of Sensation — Of Thought and Emotion — An Image 
of Swedenborg's Heavens — How Magnetism opens Communi- 
cation with the other World — Cahagnet — Demonstration of 
Immortality — The Sleep) not Necessary to the Existence of 
Sympathy — Application of the Law to the Cure of Disease — 
Xtcessity of Health and Happiness in the Physician — Sana- 
tive Contagion — Treatment of Persons at a Distance — Sym- 
pathy with Outward Nature — The Other World — Sweden- 
borg's Doctrine of Correspondence. 

ONE of the earliest observed and most obvious phe- 
nomena of the so-called magnetic state is the sym- 
pathy which exists between the magnetizer and the sub- 
ject." This is to some extent mutual and reciprocal. It 
constitutes oftentimes the basis of a pure and enduring 
friendship, that ends only with life, and even that is not 
its termination. This, so far as my observation goes, 
is entirely Platonic, and has no relation to sexual dis- 
tinctions, exhibiting itself as strong between those 
of the same, as of the opposite sex. This friendship 
sometimes rises almost to the Damon and Pythias typo, 
is extremely beautiful in its manifestations, and pro- 
claims the divine origin and character of mag 
A genuine sympathy is to many invalids, in their con- 



144 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

sciousness of isolation from a cold and selfish world, a 
medicine of potential virtue, and what they most need. 
It touches the hidden springs of life. There is in many- 
chronic patients a painful sense of isolation from the 
rest of mankind, a conscious separation from the gen- 
eral life, and an instinctive yearning and craving for the 
touch of the sympathetic hand of kindness, and of a pure, 
heartfelt love, that most will understand, though it isdiHi- 
cult to describe. The physician who best meets this inner 
want will be the most successful in relieving them of their 
diseased condition. He connects the sundeivd link 
between them and the universal life. They are put in 
communication again with the vital whole, the collective 
man. It gives efficacy to bifl remedies, of whatever 
character they may be, and to whatever school of med- 
icine he may belong. In the ease of many melancholic 
patients, the voice and touch of a living sympathy come 
like rain upon a withering flower. 

In the somnambulic Bleep, as also in the conscious 
impressible state. BO meat is this sympathy between the 
magnetize! and the subject, that there I I perfect 

community of sensation and emotion, and sometimes 
even of thought, reminding one of what Swedenborg 
affirms of the heavenly world, that so gnat is the oneness 
of spirit in each celestial society, that there is a universal 
communication of ideas and arfectional states, a fellow- 
ship of kindred minds. The wisdom and bliss of the 
whole is spontaneously imparted to each, while each im- 
parts its good to all. Magnetism creates a fellowship 
of intellect and of feeling on a smaller scale, but analo- 
gous to it. A prick of a pin on the person of the inag- 
netizer is instantly felt in the same place by the magnet- 
ized subject, and this even when the eyes are bandaged, 
or the operator stands behind the patient. Whatever he 



ME XT A L MEDIC1XE. 14^ 

tastes, the other taster. If he smells a rose, or any per- 
fume, or anything of a disagreeable odor, the other 
experiences a like sensation of smell. This community 
of sensation extends to the sight. Whatever the mag- 
net izer sees with the outward organ of vision or in 
thought, whatever mental picture he forms, as of a 
mountain, a mansion, or a beautiful landscape, the 
subject sees with the mental eye. The image is daguer- 
reotyped upon his mental retina. In this way thought, 
and all mental images or ideas are transmissible from 
one mind to another. In harmony with this law, spirits 
and angels may impress their thoughts, and the images 
of the objective scenery of the spiritual world, and even 
their emotional states, upon the sensitive and receptive 
mind. The same law governs here as in the phenomena 
of magnetism. This great law of sympathy renders 
practicable, without any miracle, an open and satisfy- 
intercourse with the higher range of life. And mag- 
netism is the science that is to give the world the long- 
led demonstration of immortality, — of conscious 
individual existence after death. Cahagnet accom- 
plished more with his entranced subjects, whose vision 
opened up to the higher realms, to place the doc- 
trine of a future life on a scientific basis, than the 
• f eighteen centuries had effected. The 
world is getting tired of theories, of doubtful specula- 
tions, of hypotheses and guesses at truth, and longs {'or 
knowledge. Magnetism, in its varied applica- 
tion, and far-reaching extent, will bring the grand idea 
of fatal nee into the domain of positive 

and place it as a fact among the certainties. 

well remarked, in the pre still- 

•• unexpected developmt 

read conviction, not 
10 



146 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

only that there is a world of spirits, but that it exists in 
a far closer proximity to the sphere of the natural or 
material realm than has been previously imagined. The 
influence of mind upon mind, the communication of ideas 
from one to another when the parties Btand in magnetic 
relation with each other, and the occasional entire sub- 
jection of the one to the will of the other, b 
established beyond a question ; and in those phenomena 
it has not been difficult to recognize a preintimation of 
the mutual intercourse of spirits in the other life, and 
the possibility of that between the denizens of this 
world and the Qi 

The magnetic sleep is no' &ry to the exhibition 

of the phenomena of sympathy. It is Been equally well 
in the c and more or Less in 

every degree <>f it. This law of sympathy lias 
application to the cure of disease. The more a pei 

is brought under the psychic influence, the more he will 
sympathize with the mental, emotional, and physical 

states of the physician. The b of the one 

will be communicated to the other, and become his per- 
manent possession. Hence the importance of the | 
chopathic physician being himself wed and happy. 
Then his emanating sphere will have in it •• itive 

contagion," that will be life-giving and health-imparting. 
lie will light the smoking wick of the patient's candle 
of life from his own well-supplied lamp, and without 
diminishing his own flame. Chronic invalids in their 
negatiye, devitalized condition, sa} r to the physician, in 
the language of the virgins in the parable, iC Give us of 
your oil, for our lights are going out." By a strict con- 
formity to the laws of life and health, he ought to be able 
to respond to this yearning cry for help, and impart to 
them a vital magnetism that shall send a thrill of life to 



XTAL MEDICINE. 147 

. v department of thoir being. It will not diminish 
bis own bock, bat may oven increase it. For it 

.1 idea of the wise virgins, that if they gave 
of their oil to supply the lamps of others, they would 
not have enough left for themselves. God gives life to 
all, and without diminution of his own vitality. 

In harmony with the law of sympathy, persons may be 
successfully treated at a distance. Ps}'chological force 
ommunieable. without regard to distance of space. 
The laws which govern the transmission of spiritual 
states and forces from one person to another at a dis- 
tance have been explained in the previous work of the 
author. The law of sympathy has a wide application, 
and has much to do in the happiness and misery, the 
health and disease, the good and evil, we experience. 
It ma}- be pressed into the service of him whose life is 
consecrated to the noble work of curing disease and 
alleviating human misery. If we possess a sound and 
healthy physical organism, and a mind at rest in the 
calm happiness of an unbroken fellowship with the cen- 
tral Life, and in living sympathy with all that is good 
and true in the universe, we ma}- be as a fountain of life 
to others, imparting from our abundant and overflowing 
stores to supply their vital poverty. The law of sym- 
pathy gives to the vital force the power of self-multipli- 
cation, without dividing and diminishing itself. It is 
communicated, but the same undiminished amount 
remains. And by this great law all living beings in the 
universe are bound together in the same bundle of life. 
Isolation would be death. Conscious sympathy with 
God, with nature, with angels and with men, is life and 
1 ace. 

The universe is not a mass of dead matter ; but is 
I with a living principle. When we are in 



148 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

sympathy with outward nature, life is imparted to Us by 
everything around us. Wc imbibe the living soul of 
things, the omnipresent life. When this inward adjust- 
ment to the harmonies and vital activities of the outward 
world is disturbed and destroyed, as in most chronic 
ailments of a nervous and melancholic type, the tio 
between us and the living universe is sundered. Wo 
experience the desolation of orphanage, no longer deriv- 
ing nutriment from the bosom of mother nature. The 
aspect of the world without is changed, and our vital 
relation to if la D L Our course is like the weari- 

some man h of e soldier out of step with his ocntorw 
His movement ia no longer aided and impelled by the 
imparted force of the whole collective body of his 
fellows. It is one of the high uses of Medical Psychol- 
ogy to restore the patient to harmony and sympathy 
with external nature, and put him in communication with 
her livi; . so that all the organic movements shall 

keep step with the grand symphony of the universe. 

The material and spiritual universes are not sundered 
from each other, like the hemispheres upon our maps, 
but are vitally connected by the law of corespondence, 
so that — 

11 Scenes of earth 
And heaven arc mixed, as flesh and soul in roan." 

Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondence, and Plato's 
theory of ideas, though not identical, bear a close resem- 
blance. Both agree in this, — that the things existing 
in the heavens are the animating principle of things in 
the material world. The objects of beauty and grandeur, 
which are cognizable by the bodily senses, are but the 
imperfect realization and representation, and as it 
were, crystallization of a higher and diviner creation. 



M K X T A L MEDICI X / . M9 

Throughout nature, the external exists from the internal, 
the lower from the higher, as the body from its indwell- 
spirit. Plato's ideas are not mere mental concep- 
tions, but something vitally real. — the pre-existing types 
and images of material things. True science and phi- 
losophy, according to him, consist not in the observation 
of external facts and sensible phenomena, but in the 
knowledge of things in their spiritual causes. The 
of the higher realm of existence are the living 
soul of things in this world, and sustain to them a causal 
SwedenbOrg teaches all this with more scien- 
tific clearness than Plato, and applies this correspond- 
ence between the material and spiritual creations to the 
interpretation of human language, and especially of 
of the Scriptures which he accepted as the 
word of God. The spiritual world is not far off in the 
bpt is interfused with this, and we may 
come into sympathetic conjunction and communication 
with tLu 1 sphere of its life. 

THE OTHER WORLD. 

" It lies around us like a cloud — 
> not see, 
• closing of an eye 
May hring us there to be. 

11 Its gentle breezes fan our cheek; 
Amid our worldly cares, 
Its gentle voices whisper love, 
And mingle with our prayers. 

M Sweet hearts around us throb and beat, 
ping ban . red, 

And palpitate the veil between 
With breathings almu^t heard. 



150 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" The silence, awful, sweet and calm, 
They have no power to break; 
For mortal words are not for them 
To utter or partake. 

u So thin, so soft, so sweet, they glide, 
So near to pi leem — 

They seem to lull us to our rest, 
And melt into our dream. 

" And in the hush of leaf they bring 
Tia eaay now to see 

How lowly and I ass 

The hour of death ma\ 

" To eld . and doae the ear, 

Wrapped in a trance ofbli 
And geiltlj drawn in loving arms, 
ii to that — from this; 

11 Scarce knowing If we wake or sleep, 
rce asking where we are 
To feel all evil link aw 

All sorrow and all care. 

11 Sweet souls around us! watch us still, 
Press nearer to our side, 
Into our thoughts, into our prayers. 
With gentle helpings glide. 

14 Let death between us be as naught, 
A dried and vanished 6tream ; 
Your joy be the reality, 

Our suffering life the dream." 

Mbs. II. B. Stowb. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 151 



CHAPTER XIX. 

HOW TO AVOID EXHAUSTION" AND IMBIBING OF 
THE DISEASED CONDITION OF THE PATIENT. 

f Magnetism has been named Pathetism — Mutual Attraction, 

d and Iron — Reciprocal Influence of the Physician 

*: m pathetic Effect of the Disease — Passicity 

Struggling against H — Sleep a Remedy for it — 

lh Healed the Sick — The Effect of Fear — 

oil — Importance of Faith — The 1'rtat- 

tn> tagious Diseases — How to Manage 

— An Invariable Ride — Economizing the 

a ustiag Side-work — To Magnetize a 

1 not he Exhausting — Action and Reaction — The 

it not a ignet increases its 

Expenditure of Will-Force — Calmness is 

ength — Illustrations— Water — Deep Breathing — 

d Vocal < 

I apathy, that what we call 

I force is communicable from one person to 
at law of our nature plays so im- 
;t in the vai tenomena of ma . 

lat appropriate name 
itinguished practition 

one of the prominen 
1 1 * I making that give nam 

. from the 



152 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

nambulic sleep, which is another marked feature of the 
magnetic condition, though not a necessary and univer- 
sal concomitant of it. 

In the case of a bar of iron and the magnet, there is a 
reciprocal attraction and influence between them. The 
iron attracts the magnet, as much as the magnet the 
iron, if they are of the same weight. So in the i 
chopathic treatment of a patient, something analogous to 
this is seen to exist. There is a mutual and reciprocal 
influence between the two. There is here t! law 

of action and reaction. The physician COmmunicafc 
sanative virtue and vital force, and is often to a 
or le 11 return with the diseased 

dition of the patient. Sometimes he Qnds it difficult to 
throw off this sympathetic influence, which may lit 
about him for days. It is perhaps better to make no 
attempt to throw it off, bat to be entirely passive and 
quiet. To Strug inst it will often only I 

it. If he can be sufficiently free from anxiety and 
excitement to fall into a tranquil sleep for a lew min- 
utes, he will wake up entirely free from it. The morbid 
effect is only temporary and sympathetic, and, if it is 
not interfered with, will soon pass away of its own 
accord. Just in proportion as he is affected with the 
diseased symptoms of the patient, does he afford him 
relief. In this way Jesus, the Great Physician, some- 
times effected his remarkable cures. " Himself took our 
infirmities, and bear our sicknesses." lie bore men's 
griefs, and carried their sorrows, and by his stripes or 
bruises they were healed. This cannot always be 
escaped by the person who devotes himself to this 
method of cure. He may not always be sufficiently pos- 
itive to repel disease, and cast it out, yet it need occa- 
sion him no alarm. The least fear of imbibing disease 



MENTAL MEDICINE. li>3 

will render one more liable to it. For it is a law that 
faith in the favorable operation of any remedial agency, 
the undonbting expectation that it will produce a desired 
and predicted result, causes a tendency in the action of 
the bodily organs toward that result. So fear predis- 
poses us to any morbid condition of which we are afraid. 
Persons who .are free from all anxiety will expose them- 
selves to the most contagious diseases without harm, 
while the least fear will render them receptive of the 
poisonous contagion and effluvia. It is in harmony 
with this law that practitioners of Medical Psychology 
aiv sometimes affected with the morbid state of their 
patients. When from their occasionally being acted 
upon in this way, they come always to fear it, or expect 
it, it renders them increasingly susceptible to such sym- 
pathetic influences. Their faith should be sufficiently 
strong to raise them above it, and render them pos- 
itively repellant to all disease. If we have a faith that 
springs from love, and extends its roots into the divine 
life itself, every morbid condition will retire and retreat 
before it ; while fear will attract it. The one is a posi- 
tive, the other a negative state of mind and of body. 
The various types of fever and highly inflammatory 
es of the general system, together with all contagious 
id better not be treated psychopathically 
except in their incipient stage, when they are seldom 
brought to the notice of a physican. Most of these 
3 are what are called by Prof. Bigelow, self limited 
diseases ; that is, they run through a certain course, and 
medicines are not competent to break up this regular 
progress and uniform succession of changes. They had 
er be left to the unobstructed operation of nature. 
When once established, it is not possible, even if it were 
desirable, to limit their duration, and essentially change 



154 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

their course. They are often only a healthy effort of 
nature to expel from the system some antecedent morbid 
condition, and they will best accomplish this result when 
the vital forces are only neral 

hygienic regulations. The late Dr. Warren was asked 
what he deemed the best remedy for inflammatory rheu- 
matism. His laconic reply was, M Six week-." So of 
these self-limited disea ription is a 

certain and definite number of days, with pore air and 
Water, and a .strict conform he laws of life and 

health. If the patient or his friends have not suffic 
faith in nature to en they may be 

with the magnet, or magnetized wain-, or even by the 
use of harmless medietas >ns. Thus nature in 

the proper time will cure tl the 

physician, who has been <>nl; bator of 

ti\e processes, will rec The original 

homoeopathic Bystem, tl are adopted by 

Hahnemann and his imia well 

adapted to tins class of d . An infinitesimal 

quantity of any me lioinal Bubst 

to nothing, and it is aelf-evident oould not have much 

effect for good or evil. Bed the patient that 

he was taking something, while it left the natural 
reaction of the system the dis< condition 

free to cure it. 

It is a good rule to follow, that we should D< 
attempt to cure disease by the psychopathic method 
when we are suffering from excessive fatigue and 
exhaustion. Besides the loss of our mental and odyllic 
force at such times, which will weaken our power to 
affect and control others, our negative Btate will rei, 
us increasingly susceptible to the influence of the morbid 
condition of the patient. We had better wait until our 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 155 

vital force is renewed and our exhausted powers are 
bored. The person who would be most successful in 
healing the sick by this primitive and apostolic method 
should not waste his nervous force in other directions, 
but so far as practicable consecrate his energies to this 
one end. He will need all his mental and physical 
powers in this sublime work. All exhausting side-work 
must be avoided. He must economize the expenditure 
of his nervous life. It is enough for one man or woman 
to do. It is a work that might fill an angel's heart, and 
filled a Saviour's hands. It is the sublimest mission to 
which a human being was ever called. 

To treat the ordinary forms of chronic disease by this 
method is not necessarily exhausting to the practitioner, 
but may even be invigorating to his vital powers. In 
every act there is action and reaction, which are always 
equal. The necessary reaction from giving, from 
imparting, will cause the supply to be equal to the 
expenditure. It is a law of far-reaching extent, and as 
invariable in its operation as gravitation, that he who 
gives shall receive an equivalent for what he imparts. 
There is nothing supernatural in this, any more than in 
the operation of the general law of action and reaction. 
If the psychic force were a subtle fluid imparted by one 
son to another, it would be natural to suppose, that 
after treating a few persons, the physician would be him- 
self drained dry, like pouring a quantity of water from 
one i 9sel into an empty one. It drains the one 

to fill the other. But this imponderable agent is a 
force, and not a fluid. It may be imparted and not 
diminished, just as a large magnet will impart its power 
to another equal bar of steel, which will permanently 
retain it, and yet the original magnet has lost nothing. 
In fact, the more a magnet is used in this way, the 



156 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

stronger it becomes. The same law of increase from 
use holds good in the practice of Medical Psychology. 
Force is indestructible. It can be communicated and 
not diminished. Heat is a force, — a vibratory movement 
and not a fluid. One lamp will light a thousand others, 
without lessening its own flame. 

Some persons make too great exertion in the tn 
ment of the sick. They strain every nerve and nni 
as if they were going to Lift a mountain from the 
patient. This neediest expenditure of the will-force 
exhausts them, and would just as mueh if employed in 
any other direction, as in running or lifting. We 
walk for miles without loss of nervous energy, while to 
run only a few rods will can ne. Disease cannot 

be cast out by main strength. No violent physical 
demonstrations are ry. Let there be strong 

faith, perfect self-reliance, confidence in your ability, a 
calm trust in the aid of higher powers, and a steady 
concentration of the will-force upon the desired result, 
and you will be successful. No outward and violent 
exertions can be substituted for these. They are tire- 
some and useless, and actually defeat the end at which 
we aim, by the disturbance which t! ision in the 

psychic force. All the great forces in nature are silent 
in their operation. They make little noise or stir. Imi- 
tate in this respect the operation of the Divine power in 
the universe. We often see parents, who wish to control 
their children, using loud and boisterous language, as 
if they were issuing commands to an army. All violent, 
noisy outward demonstrations indicate a lack of will- 
power. Others, b} r a look, or a simple movement of the 
hand, or a single word charged with a calm mental force, 
bring them into submission at once, for children intui- 
tively perceive that there is meaning in it, and a strong 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 157 

will-force behind it. The tap of Caesar's finger awed the 
Roman senate. 

While giving the psychopathic treatment to a patient, 
l well to breathe deep and full, and drink freely of 
pure water. There may not be in this so much of Prof. 
Huxley's protopl asm or physical basis of life, as there is 
in raw beef and brandy ; but there is more magnetic life 
in i> op. full respiration, and its usual attendant, 

a deep, rich, full volume of voice, is indicative of strong 
vital powers ; while a short, quick, and feeble breath- 
ing, with a weak, cracked, and broken voice, is an un- 
erring symptom of a devitalized state. By a deep and 
full inspiration, both in the physical and spiritual sense, 
drink in life from the all-surrounding and viewless air, 
and educate the patient to do the same. This is of more 
importance to most patients than all the medicines that 
ever were prescribed or invented to bless or curse the 
world. 

All physiologists, ancient and modern, have noticed 
the sympathy existing between the sexual organs and 
the larynx and voice, not only during the healthy, but 
during the pathological condition of these organs. 
They mutually act and react upon each other. This 
exhibited in various ways. On the estab- 
lishment of the age of puberty in males, the vocal 
organs undergo a marked change, the voice usually 
being lowered an octave, and increased in volume. In 
eunuchs the voice approaches in quality that of women, 
and the performance of castration at an early period 
arrests the development of the larynx, and perpetuates 
the clear and feminine voice of adolescence. To the 
sympathy which exists between the reproductive and 
vocal organs is to be attributed the unpleasant spasms 
and choking sensation in the throat of hysterical 



158 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

patients, and the inflammation of the mucous membrane 
of the larynx in nervous invalids of both sexes. An 
undue excitement and overworking of the sexual organ- 
ism will weaken the vocal apparatus, and a habit of 
deep abdominal breathing will, in turn, give strength 
and a healthy tone to the organs of generation. It is 
the best known remedy for every form of sexual disc 
It has been established beyond a doubt by Dr. Des- 
granges, of Lyons, that persons who are addicted to an 
abuse or over-use of the sexual organs are the most 
liable to inflammations of the larynx, tonsils, and throat. 
A complete aphony, or loss of voice, Is sometimes 
caused by a prolapsus or ulceration of the uterus, and 
never can be cured until that condition of the generative 
organs is removed. All physicians have observed the 
sympathy which exists in women between the respira- 
tory and vocal organs and the womb. Thus, during 
pregnancy, or the approach of the menstrual period, or 
at its cessation, many females, especially those of a 
nervous temperament, experience remark- 

able change in the voice Taking the sympathy which 
exists between the vocal and reproductive organs as an 
established principle of physiology, it is evident that no 
remedy for the multifarious forms of sexual disease can 
be more natural or efficient than an erect attitude and 
full and deer) breathing. It is a prescription invariably 
and universally applicable to all such cae 

REST. 

" Rest is not fleeing 
This noisy career ; 
Rest is the fitting 

Of self to one's sphere. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 159 

" "Tis the brook's motion, 
Clear without strife, 
Fleeing to ocean 
After its life. 

" Tis loving and seeing 
The brightest and best, 
>r Tis onward unswerving, 
And this is true rest." 



160 MENTAL ME DICIN1 



CHAPTER XX. 

POWER FROM OX IIIOIT, OR SPIRITUAL AID, NEC- 
ESSARY TO SUCCESS IX THE CUBE OF DISEASE 
BY MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 

What meant by Power from Above — TTow God H>lps Men — 
Spirits and Angel* tht Medium* — Magnetism Reveals the other 
World — Connect* ui with it — Testimony of Gregory — De- 
leutze — Cahagnet — 3 d — Scientific Proof of Continued 

istenct — Vrof Buck — The Work Assigned the Nineteenth 
Century — Lairs it — Stilling'* Pneumatology — The 

Psychopathic Physician Nerds tlie Aid of Higher Powers — 

ArailihUity of it — The Lawshy which iratcd — 

Two Kinds of Operation - m — Influence 

or Merttal Stimulation— These Conditions Described — How 
to render Available the Forces of the Spiritual World — Mental 
and Spiritual Laws — Spiritual Christianity — The Central 
Idea of the Gospels* 

BEFORE the apostles were allowed to go forth on 
their public mission of healing the Bicfc, and pro- 
claiming the higher truths of a new dispensation, an 
advanced stage in the development of the kingdom of 
God on earth, they were expressly commanded to tarry 
in Jerusalem until they should be endued with power 
from on high. This alone would qualify them for the 
work assigned them in the plan of Providence. After 
this spiritual baptism they were different men. They 
were invested with a new power. Their carnal, material 
mode of thought was made to give place to a clearer 
perception of spiritual things. The fleshly veil was 
removed from their minds, their intuitions were quick- 



MENTAL MEDICIXE. 161 

encd, their interior senses were opened, and they came 
into conscious communication with ttie spiritual world. 
To be endued with power from on high can mean noth- 
ing less than the reception of an influence from the 
higher realm of being to strengthen and augment the 
action of their natural faculties. So far as the power to 
cine disease is a special gift to the individual, it is a 
call from God and nature to use it for the benefit of 
humanity, and there is in it a pledge also of divine aid. 
But it is the ordinary method of divine communica- 
tion with men to employ the intermediate agency of 
spirits and angels. This is a truth fully illustrated and 
confirmed by the historical records of both Testaments. 
And Plutarch long ago observed, that u one supreme 
Providence governs the world ; and genii (or subordi- 
nate spirits) participate with him in its administration. 
To these genii have been given, among different people, 
different names, and different honor." In the Old and 
New Testament the}' are denominated angels. Spiritual 
influences come to us from a sympathetic connection and 
conjunction with the intelligences and powers of the 
inner or higher world. This is effected without a mir- 
acle, and in perfect harinony with the laws of our nature. 
If it be a fact, and there is no reason to doubt it, that 
the apostles of Jesus were made the recipients of an in- 
fluence emanating from the realm above, which exalted 
all their natural powers to a higher range of activity, so 
as to render works easily practicable, which, in their un- 
assisted condition, were difficult and even impossible, 
there is no reason why we may not be endowed with the 
same psychological and spiritual force, and from the 
same quarter. They were elevated, by this sympathetic 
conjunction with higher intelligences, from the low range 
of the fleshly mind, to a plane of the inner life border- 
11 



162 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

ing on the high activities of the celestial climes. But it 
was effected without any departure from the ordinary- 
laws of mind. Magnetism is the science which puts 
man into communication with the spirit-world, and con- 
nects this lower and rudimentary sphere with the higher 
range of life and intelligence. How this is done, I have 
shown in treating on the law of sympathy. It has been 
noticed by all the writers on animal magnetism, — 
Deleutze, Cahagnet, Townsend, and ( . — that 

persons in the higher stages of the magneti find 

themselves in communication with the spiritual world. 
"They hold long c tions with spirits, to whom 

they often give names, and who, in many e: ord- 

ing to their account, are the spirits of departed friends 

or relations. The remarks and answers of these beings, 
seen in vision, are reported by them. Some of them 
aflirm that every man 1;. aidant good spirit, per- 

haps, also, an evil one of inferior power. Some can 
summon, either of themselves or with the aid of their 
attendant spirit, the vision or spirit of any dead relation 
or friend, and even of persons also -lead, whom neither 
they nor their magnetizer have ever seen, whom perhaps 
no one present has ever Been; and the minute descrip- 
tion given in all cases of the persons Been or sum- 
moned is afterwards found to be correct 

If there be a spiritual world, not remote from this, 
but sustaining important relations to the world we con- 
sciously occupy, and a vital connection with it, as the 
soul and body in man, it is at least possible, and highly 
probable, that these visions of the somnambulic and 
trance states may be solid realities, and not the b; 
less fabric of a dream. Here is opened up to us a 
source of evidence of the truth of future existence of 
more scientilic value than all the dry essays and pulpit 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 163 

declamations respecting immortality that ever issued 
from the brain of the religious world through all the 
past centuries of its history. It would be natural to 
suppose, that, after the various sects of Christendom had 
been trying to prove the truth of immortality for centu- 
ries, without placing it on any solid or satisfactory 
foundation, they would seize with avidity upon the 
positive evidence of frets afforded them Iry the higher 
phenomena of magnetism. But, strange to say, they 
reject and spurn the only proof that is adapted to the 
scientific mind of the age. They prefer theories and 
metaphysical speculations to living facts and demonstra- 
tions. Prof. Bush, one of the best scholars and clear- 
est thinkers of this or any age, was led to the belief of 
Swedenborg's disclosures respecting the spirit-world, 
by his investigations into the phenomena of magnetism. 
Thousands of others, many of them the highest intellects 
of the country, and occupying every social and political 
position, from the highest downward, are reaching a con- 
dition of satisfactory faith in immortality by a similar 
route. To demonstrate the future conscious individual 
existence of the countless millions who have once lived 
in this lower world, and the connection of that realm of 
spiritual intelligences with this, and the practicability of 
a reliable and satisfactory communication between the 
two worlds, is the sublime mission of the nineteenth 
century. The science of human magnetism is the torch 
by the light of which mankind will explore their way to 
an all-satisfying faith and positive knowledge of immor- 
tality. 

In the magnetic condition, whether self-induced or 
otherwise, the inner selfhood becomes freed, in a me 
ure. from the material limitations of time and space. 
All spacial distances are annihilated, and the partially 



164 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

emancipated spirit soars on the wings of thought and 
desire, across continents to distant realms, and sees and 
hears what is there transpiring. It may travel to the 
remotest worlds of space, and hold communion with 
their inhabitants. The curtain that is drawn between 
this and the ever-present spiritual realm, always to the 
higher nature of man tremulous and wavy, and only 
partially opaque, is withdrawn, and the interior man lias 
converse with the dwellers on the immortal shore, by 
means of the COgttaHo r, or thought-speaking, 

which there becomes an indescribable inward vocal 
utterance. In more normal states, we sometimes experi- 
ence what Whittier so beautifully describes in the fol- 
lowing lines : — 

" So sometimes com^s to B<ra] anil sense 
The feeling which Lb eriden 

That very near about 111 ll 

The realm of spiritual myst- 

The sphere of the supernal powers 
Impingea on this world of ours. 

The low and dark horizon lifts. 

To light the scenic terror sh 

The breath of a diviner air 
Blows down the answer of ■ prayer: — 
That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 
A great COmpa&sion elasps about, 
And law and goodness, love and force, 
Arc wedded fast beyond divorce. 
Then duty leaves to love its task, 
The beggar Self forgets to ask ; 
With smile of trust and folded hands, 
The passive soul in waiting stands 
To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, 
The One true life its own renew." 

There are certain persons who have the power of 
detaching or abstracting the mind or spirit from the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 165 

bodily organism, and removing from the inner life the 
veil of sense, and then they come under the operation 
of the laws that govern spirit existence. These laws 
have been described in the remarkable experiences of 
Swedenborg, "whose open communion with another world 
for * ix years was in perfect harmony with the 

nature of mind. Stilling also has briefly stated some of 
M laws. He says: " Space is merely the operation 
of the material organs of sense ; out of them it has no 
real existence. Therefore, as soon as the soul forsakes 
the latter, all proximity and distance cease. Hence, if 
• and in rapport with a person who is many thousand 
miles distant, it can impart knowledge, by an inward 
communication, and receive it from such a one, and all 
apidly as thoughts follow each other. When the 
soul is separated from the body, it is wherever it thinks 
to be ; for as space is onty its mode of thinking (or as 
Kant has expressed it, a state of the intellect), but 
does not exist except in its idea, it is always at the 
place which it represents to itself, if it may be there." 

Again he says : " Souls and spirits communicate their 
thoughts to each other through the medium of the will; 
when one soul wishes another to know any particular 
thing, the latter immediately knows it ; the one reads it 
in the interior of the other, even as the somnambulist 
reads in the soul of him with whom he stands in rap- 
port." (P, pp. 220, 231.) 

Let it be borne in mind, that every person has an 
internal and an external manhood. The one we call the 
spirit, the other the body. There are individuals who 
can, in a greater or nder the connection 

between these two departments of our complex nature, 
and then the under the laws which govern life in 

it-world. Their lnn< re unveiled, fchey 



166 MENTAL MEDICIXE. 

see and converse with spirits and angels, and are trans- 
ported in spirit to remote distances, for space to them 
has no objective, but only a subjective existence. The 
law by which one mind Lmpi ts thoughts and feel- 

ings upon another at a distance operates with more 
unobstructed force. They telegraph their thoughts to 
an absent friend, and there are not wanting many 
lere they have a in person, 

and entered intocoi: lone in harmony 

with some law that is not now very clearly understood. 
It has long been known that mind can act upon mind 
independent of materia] di Cornelius Agrippa 

that man i d without any miracle 

may convey his tiKX twinkling of an eye to 

another, however remote be I to be. k - Ti 

he affirms, k> I have known and often done, and so has 
Abboe Tritbenius, prof philosophy at Padua.* 

Petnw Pomponatius, n born in 1102. had < 

tended 1 an Helmont, who taught the same thing, 

for the power of what i a, or by the 

force of the will, of one person to send forth an influ- 
ence upon another. I! a that inanimate 
matter may be affected by this influence. This latter 
phenomenon seems to have been wit ly Dr. Ash- 
burner in an experiment which he details in the " Zoist." 
(Vol. v., p. 272. ) If incarnated mind can do these 
things, why may not spirits disrobed of mortality, and 
even Jesus and his angels, do as much and even more? 
Why may there not be, in harmony with the known laws 
of our spiritual nature, a mutual influence between the 
denizens of this world and the higher or inner realms, 
and a reciprocal interchange of thoughts and percep- 
tions? It certainly would not be a miracle. 

As the apostles were unfitted for the performance of 



MENTAL MEDICI XE. 167 

their peculiar mission without the Pentecostal influences, 
so no one can be fully prepared to heal the sick by the 
"laying on of hands/' as it is popularly called, who has 
not come into a conscious vital communication with the 
higher range of life and receives assistance thence. He 
may do something without this, but onty small results 
can follow his efforts. His natural powers must be rein- 
forced by some spiritual aid foreign to himself. He 
must come into vital sympathy and communication with 
the Christ and the angel-world. In a word, to employ 
the expressive phrase which the religious literature of 
eighteen centuries has consecrated to the expression of 
the idea, he must be " endued with power from on high." 
This will augment his magnetic and psychological force, 
and be the sovereign remed}' for exhaustion, and a per- 
fect security against injury from imbibing the morbid 
condition of the patient. He will find in this sympa- 
thetic union with the world above a never-failing supply 
of spiritual life and psychic force. 

It has been found that a person who has been thrown 
into the magnetic state will sooner magnetize another 
ect than the same person can do it in his normal 
state. His psychic power seems to be greatly increased. 
A person in a state of somnambulism, whether self- 
induced or otherwise, will communicate that state to 
others much sooner than he could if not in that condi- 
tion. There can be no doubt that whatever the physical 
agent may be which is concerned in the production of 
the phenomena of magnetism, the action of the mind of 
the operator is the prime force, without which little 
effect can be produced. But mental or will-force is the 
here, whether it be the action of a spirit in 
the flesh, or a spirit disrobed of its mortal vestment. 

cut, that whatever influence our 



168 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

minds can exert over another person, a spirit dive- 
of its outward covering, and freed from material limita- 
tions, can also exert with equal if not still greater 
power. If your mind is competent to magnetize another 
person, for instance a chronic invalid, in order to cure 
him of disease, a spiritual being is adequate to magnet- 
ize you at the same time, and thus increase your power. 
This is the idea at bottom in the phrase being endued 
with power from on high. 

All nations, in every age of mankind, have believed 
in the existence of a world of spirits, and their influ- 
ence for good or evil over men in this earthly sph< 
It is a universal faith, the creed of human nature. 
Their power to affect as may be exhibited in different 
ways. There are divers operations, bat the same spirit. 

These may be reduced tO two genera! 

may be actual control both of the mind and the body 
of the subject. This is called obsession or possession. 
The controlling spirit may he either good or bad. and 
the phenomena exhibited will be accordingly. We 

protected from the control of evil spirits by one of the 
laws of magnetism, for, as we have before shown, it 
well-nigh impossible to magnetize a person for a wicked 
purpose, and a Bta1 is psychologically 

superior to a state of evil This complete invasion of 
the material organs, this supplanting of the individ- 
uality, is not confined to the operation of evil spirits, or 
those of a lower order. The prophets of Jewish history 
were thus controlled, so that they wrote and spake what 
they did not themselves understand. According to 
Plato, this was the case, also, with the distinguished 
poets of his times. But a more common, and a more 
desirable form of the operation of the spirit, is wli 
there is no control or possession, but only in In 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 169 

this latter case, the subject's individuality is not sup- 
pressed, nor is there any interference with his ordinary 
consciousness, but his powers are stimulated to an in- 
creased activity and a loftier range. All his faculties 
are exalted in their action. His natural powers are 
reinforced by the emanative sphere of the superior in- 
telligence. His intuitions are quickened. He is borne, 
as on the wings of the spirit, to a higher and diviner 
range of intellectual activity. Powers of the spirit 
which, in our normal state, are suppressed by the fleshly 
covering, or exist only in a chrysalis or latent state, are 
temporarily emancipated. The subject is inspired, be- 
comes mentally perceptive, and sometimes prophetic, 
but all the time retains his consciousness and identity. 
His mental peculiarities are not annihilated, but exalted 
and put to their proper use. This is the aid we need, 
and may have, from Christ and the angel-world, in the 
cure of disease. It is all in harmony Avith the laws of 
magnetism which exhibits both classes of phenomena. 
The ordinary magnetic sleep answers to obsession. The 
conscious impressible state corresponds to the latter 
class of phenomena. The more sensitive one is to the 
psychic and magnetic force, the more easily he may thus 
be influenced by higher powers. 

How may we be thus influenced by superior intelli- 
gences, and how may we render the forces of the spirit- 
ual world available for assisting our weakness? The 
apostles cured disease in the name of Jesus ; that is, 
by virtue of a power or influence emanating from him. 
Jesus still lives, and is as accessible to us as he was to 
them. We may come into sympathetic communication 
with him, and we cannot do this too often nor too much. 
Oth' Ic the apostles, in every ' the church, 

have healed * ; all manner of sickness and diseti-e among 



170 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

the people M by a power professedly and actualty derived 
from him. The law by which this was done is in opera- 
tion to-day, and is applicable to any and all ether spirits 
with whom we may be associated by the power of sym- 
pathy, and to whom we may be vitally joined by an 
affectionate remembrance and congeniality of thought 
and feeling. All spirit, from the Infinite Mind down 
through every grade of intelligences, is governed by the 
same laws in communicating with others. It is one of 
these laws that their presence and aid must be 
earnestly and sincerely. They will come at our call. 
Christ himself, many times and in various parts of the 
world, has unmistakably and consciously manifested 
himself to other ing to his promise, lie pled 

himself, before he left the world, by putting off his 
mortal body, to to men. He has kept his 

word. He lias often come in the glory of the Father, 
and with his holy angels. Jn another world the emanci- 
pated spirit, i\cc from material restraints and limita- 
tions, is borne on the wings of thought and desire from 
place to place. To think of another, with a desire to 
be with him and enjoy his so g an actual 

presence and conjunction of that spirit. But the same 
law of mind or spirit operates here. In our inmost 
being we are spirits now, — spirits clothed with a fleshly 
robe, — and are as much in the spirit-world as we ever 
shall be ; for that world is where our spirit is, which is 
already in it and a part of it. If we sincerely invoke 
the aid and presence of higher intelligences, they will 
be with us in obedience to the laws of their nature and 
existence. If we are in sympathy with good and wise 
spirits, that sympathy is itself a state of presence with 
them. In the realm of spirit, distance is more a feeling 
than an outward measurement. A similitude of feeling, 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 171 

a likeness of state, is nearness. This only waits the 
power of thought and desire to bring it to the grasp of 
consciousness. 

In accordance with these laws, we may be endued 
with power from on high, and our natural powers may 
be greatly augmented by the forces and influences of the 
world of spirits. This is perfectly normal, entirely in 
harmon^y with nature, and no infringement of the laws 
of divine order. It is an essential element of a vital 
Christianity. Without it, religion degenerates into a 
dead formalism, a ponderous machine without an im- 
pelling power, a body without a living soul. It has 
been the vital element, the animating principle, of all 
religions in every age. The grand characteristic of 
Christianity, by which it is distinguished from all other 
religious systems, ancient and modern, is the guiding, 
controlling influence of what it calls the holy spirit, 
which seems to include not only the idea of the eman- 
ative sphere of the divine Life, received by the soul, 
but also has in it the conception of a vital communica- 
tion with the general sphere of the world of spirits. It 
has been established by science that every object in 
nature, every animal, vegetable, and mineral substance, 
is surrounded by an atmosphere that is composed of the 
subtle atoms and essences that exhale from it. This 
may with propriety be called the spirit of the thing. Its 
existence has been demonstrated by spectrum analysis, 
which plays so important a part in modern scientific 
investigations. The rays proceeding from each object, 
passed through a prism and magnified, form a rainbow 
peculiar to it, and which distinguishes it from all other 
objects. So there surrounds every human soul, every 
spirit and angel, an emanative sphere of their affectional 
and intellectual life. This may be felt by those of sen- 



172 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

sitive organization, and is clearly discerned by the 
clairvoyant faculty of perception, and is often seen and 
described as differently colored light. This is no dream, 
but something substantially real. The emanative sphere 
of the divine Mind, transmitted to us through the celes- 
tial and spiritual realms of being, is the holy spirit, so 
often mentioned in the New Testament. The general 
sphere of the intelligence and life of the spiritual world 
is the vital essence of all things here below. It is the 
divine magnetic life of men and all things in nature. A 
conscious conjunction with that superior or inner realm 
of life and light, and revelation thence, together with an 
elevation and stimulation of all the faculties of the soul, 
was not a mere transient circumstance attending the 
first promulgation of the Christian system, and the 
privilege of the first public teachers by an extraordinary 
vouchsafement of the divine favor, but it constitutes the 
very essence of the religion of the Gospels, and is their 
central idea. Christianity, in its purity, — not the 
altered and degenerate systems that have appropriated 
the name, but which Jesus could not recognize as hav- 
ing only the remotest resemblance to his religious 
system, — is emphatically a dispensation of the spirit. 
Christ left no written creed, no arbitrary and invariable 
rules of life, no iixed system of external worship, no 
stereot} T ped form of ecclesiastical organization and gov- 
ernment, but everything, as the profound Neander has 
observed and acknowledged, was left to be unfolded by 
the influence of the promised spirit. The written word, 
the outward letter of Scripture, is not presented as an 
infallible guide, but Jesus promised to send the Com- 
forter, the Paraclete or divine teacher and advocate, to 
lead into all truth. And Paul declares, that " as many 
as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 173 

God." And " If we have not the spirit of Christ, we 
are none" of his." This spiritual influence is given, " to 
help our infirmities, " or to strengthen our natural pow- 
ers ; " to make intercession for us," or to inspire within 
ns suitable desires and emotions in prayer; to bear an 
inward witness to our consciousness that we are children 
of God ; to direct in duty, and to quicken and animate 
all our mental faculties and bodily powers. On extraor- 
dinary occasions, the followers of Jesus were " to take 
no thought how and what they should sa} r , but it should 
be given them in that day what they ought to speak." 
Paul declares that our bodies are designed to be temples 
of the holy spirit, thus exalting and dignifying human 
nature, and making every man and woman an incarna- 
tion of the Divinity, and an inspired messenger of 
another world. This spiritual influence, which, as we 
have seen, is the animating principle of nature, was to 
extend its divine magnetism to the physical organism, 
imparting to it health and vitality. u If the spirit of 
him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in }'ou, he 
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken 
(that is, vivify, animate) your mortal bodies, by his 
spirit that dwelleth in }'Ou." Here is a universal and 
available source of sanative power, and a potential spirit- 
ual remedy for morbid conditions of mind and body. 

AVe are taught, in the religious philosophy of Sweden- 
borg, that the holy spirit and the word of God are one. 
By the word of God, in the first chapter of the Gospel 
of John, is meant the general sphere of life and intelli- 
gence in the realms above, the calm, tranquil, all-ani- 
mating, all-pervading, loving and living light of the 
heavens. " This is the true light that illuminateth 
every man who cometh into the world." It is an im- 
personal influence, and not a divine or human individu- 



174 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

ality. This is the living word, the essential substance 
of all truth, the unerring guide of all souls who are 
admissive of it, the source of a present, conscious, and 
ail-satisfying revelation. It was the reception of this 
by Jesus that constituted him the Christ, the anointed 
one, and a Son of God. Whoever is receptive of it is 
made thereby a son of God, as the Son of Mary was. 
"As many as received it, to them it gave power to be- 
come sons of God/' (Jno. 1 : 12.) The church has 
strayed from the system taught by Christ and the 
apostles, in making the dead letter of Scripture sup- 
plemented by their stereotyped creeds, their lifeless 
formulas, and arbitrary roles, the guide of men's souls. 
Thus the blind have led the blind, until all together 
have fallen into the ditch of materialism and sensualism. 
The real word of God is not a book to be read, but a 
spirit, an illuminating, animating influence to be re- 
ceived, the living light of the never-distant heavens, the 
crystal fountain of truth, from which the prophets and 
inspired men of all ages and climes have drunk. Were 
every book in the world annihilated to-day, the true word 
of God, the Logos of John and Plato, would still remain 
and be accessible to every mind who loves truth for its 
own divine self. To come into communication with this 
living light, which Swedenborg denominates the spirit- 
ual sense of the external letter, is what the spiritually- 
minded disciple refers to in the following passage of his 
first epistle : " Ye have an unction from the holy one 
(or principle), and know all things. The anointing 
which ye have received abide th in you, and }~e need not 
that any man teach you, but the same anointing teach- 
eth you of all things, and is truth and no lie." (1 Jno. 
2 : 20, 27.) Such is real Christianity. It is not a 
creed, nor a liturgy, nor an outward mechanism of wor- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 175 

ship, nor an organization, but a spirit received; and 
" where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.*' If 
such is the essential element of Christianity, its funda- 
mental idea, where are the Christians? In sundering 
the conscious vital connection between men's souls and 
the upper world the church has lost its power, and is like 
a plant in a barren soil, stunted and withered by a long- 
continued drouth, or like a once fruitful tree, but now 
dead at the root. The spiritual gifts, enumerated by 
Paul (1 Cor. 12 : 1-11), among which was the power of 
healing, have disappeared, and instead of it we have a 
dry creed and a dryer ritual. Instead of a living, 
sent inspiration, we have the thoughts and teachings 
of men who lived centuries ago carefully embalmed and 
preserved in the tomb of the dead past. Instead of the 
worship of God in spirit and in truth, in the sacred sol- 
itude of the heart, and wherever the soul can meet an 
omnipresent Deity, and on every point of the globe 
where the heavens meet and touch the earth, we have 
only a mechanical substitute for it. But there are indi- 
cations, not to be mistaken, that the time is at hand 
when the remarkable prediction of the prophet, uttered 
more than twenty-live centuries ago, shall be more fully 
realized than it was in the first age of Christianity : 
•• It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will 
pour out of my spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and 
i daughters shall prophesy (or speak from a present 
piration), and your young men shall see visions, and 
IT old men shall dream dreams ; and on my servants, 
and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days 
of my spirit, and they shall prophesy/' (Acts 2: 17, 
18.) It was not the design of Christianity to sunder 
men's souls from a conscious conjunction with the light 
and life of the heavens. Such a result did not enter 



176 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

into the conceptions and the plans of its founder. This 
unnatural divorce between the higher and the lower 
realms of being will some time end. Then celestial 
light, life, and power will flood the earth. The living 
word will take the place of the printed page, and in the 
spirit, that descends from the opened heavens, God shall 
give the promised new testament to his people. " Be- 
hold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a 
new testament for the house of Israel and for the house 
of Judah. Not according to the testament that I made 
for their fathers, but this is the testament I will make 
for the house of Israel: I will give my laws into their 
mind, and write them upon their hearts. And they shall 
not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his 
brother, saying, know the Lord ; for all shall know me, 
from the least to the greatest/ 1 (Heb. 8: 8-10.) 
The testament, the word of God, which is to be the 
guide of man, will not be an external book, but an in- 
ward light and life, opening upward into the serene 
depths of the luminous atmosphere of the angel-world. 
Then men will live so near the other shore that they can 
%i scent the odorous gales that kiss the eternal hills of 
day." 

EUTHANA8Y. 

11 "We need no change of sphere 
To view the heavenly sights, or hear 

The songs which angels sing. The hand 

Which gently pressed the sightless orbs crewhile. 

Giving them light, a world of beauty, and the friendly smile, 

Can cause our eyes to see the better land. 

11 AVe need no wings 

To soar aloft to realms of higher things ; 
But only feet which walk the paths of peace, 

Guided by him whose voice 

Greets every ear, makes every heart rejoice, 
Saying, Arise, and walk where sorrows cease. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. Ill 

" Visiting spirits are near; 

They are not wholly silent, but we cannot hear 

Nor understand their speech. 

Our Saviour caught his Father's word, 

And men of old, dreaming and waking, heard 

The breathings of a world we cannot reach. 

11 They mounted to the skies, 

And read deep mysteries, 
While vet on earth they placed a ladder there, 

Like Jacob's, that each round should lead, 

By prayer outspoken in a word or deed, 
The soul to heights of clearer, purer air. 

11 They saw no messenger of gloom 
In him whom we call Death, nor met their doom 

As prisoner his sentence; but naturally, as bud unfolds to flower, 
As child to man, so man to angel — 
They recognized in Death the glad evangel, 

Leading to higher scenes of life and power." 



178 MENTAL MEDICINE. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

MISCELLANEOUS DIRECTIONS IN THE TREATMENT 
OF DISEASE, INCLUDING THE METHOD OF A 
CORRECT DIAGNOSIS. 

Sympathy between Different Parts of the Body — Use of the 
Law — The Arms and Lungs — Treatment of Pulmonary Dis- 
eases — The Relief of I*aii\ — at ions — Reproductive 
Organs — Treatment of Female Diseases — TV and 
Permanent Cures — Medical Psychology and the Swedish 
Movements — Simplicity of the Right Remedy — Illustrative 
Case — Sympatic, royance — How Developed — Its Use 
in the Diagnosis of Disease — Importance of a Correct Diag- 
nosis — Nature of Interior Perception — // is a Spiritual 
Gift — Its Sublime Uses — Reality of th i >fe. 

THERE arc certain parts of the body that arc con- 
nected by sympathy, though they may be widely 
remote from each other. Paul seems to have had a 
shadowy, undefined glimpse of this law of sympathy in 
the action and state of the various organs and parts of 
the bodily structure, and refers to it in the twelfth chap- 
ter of the first epistle to the Corinthians. But his 
description is more poetic than scientific. The head and 
feet, being opposite poles of the living magnet, are 
mutually affected each by the state of the other. A 
good circulation in the feet indicates a cool, clear brain. 
When the head is hot and congested, the feet are cool. 
The arms and lungs exhibit the same sympathetic rela- 
tion to each other. There is an actual nervous connec- 
tion between them, through the brachial plexus. When 



MENTAL MEDICINE . 179 

you violently move your arms, as in swinging them, or 
in striking, the nervous thrill that goes to the muscles 
of the arm passes at the same time along the respiratory 
nerve to the diaphragm and lungs, and causes an 
increased breathing. The hectic Hush in the cheek 
reveals a point in sympathy with the state of the lungs. 
When a person is in the impressible condition, the psy- 
chic force applied here will affect the action of the 
lungs. For inflammation and other forms of pulmonary 
disease, we may favorably affect their state, by stimulat- 
ing the vital action of the arms by friction, pressure of 
the muscles, and kneading. The practice of kneading, 
rubbing, percussing and working the different parts of 
the bod}', anciently called tripsis, has a powerful effect 
in increasing their vital action, and promoting a vigor- 
ous circulation of the living forces through them. Such 
a treatment of the arms is an efficient remedy in pul- 
monary complaints. The life imparted by it is con- 
veyed by sympathy- to the lungs. In inflammation of 
the lungs, the stimulation of the arms acts as a deriv- 
ative or counter-irritant. This kind of treatment seems 
to be a specific for the various forms of pulmonary dis- 
ease. 

Inflammations are sometimes best relieved, and 
most effectually cured, by exciting the parts below, 
especially if those parts are in sympathetic connection 
with the seat of the inflammation. The excitement of 
the parts below the inflamed organ acts on the principle 
of a counter-irritant, only in a more natural and healthy 
manner. In uterine inflammations, the calf of the leg 
will always be in a negative, devitalized condition, for 
part of the lower extremities exhibits a special 
sympathy with the reproductive organs, equally marked 
with that of the breasts or mammary glands and the 



180 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

same parts, or the nipple and clitoris. In some uterine 
diseases the calf of the leg will be extremely sensitive 
to pressure, and sometimes the sensation will be analo- 
gous to that which is felt when the leg is said to be 
asleep, when it is touched or moved. In inflammation 
of the uterus and its appendages, and in prurigo of 
the vulva, and nymphomania, some physicians apply 
counter-irritants, as mustard or cantharides, to the calf 
of the leg. But the treatment above described, as 
applied to the arms for pulmonary complaints, when 
employed here, is much better than any counter-irritant, 
as it restores the parts to a healthy vital action, and 
determines the circulation of the living forces, and the 
accumulated magnetism of the reproductive organs, to 
the place in sympathy with them. It is nature's remedy 
for this class of diseases, especially in conjunction with 
the proper treatment of the abdominal mas fore 

described. When an organ is in a state of inflammation, 
or undue excitement, or exhibits an excessive accumula- 
tion of life in it, the part with which it is sympatheti- 
cally connected will be in a negative or .devitalized con- 
dition. By exciting the vital activity of this part, it 
attracts to it the surplus vitality of the organ, to which 
is added your own psychic force and magnetism, and 
thus the healthy equilibrium is restored. 

Pain can be effectually relieved by holding the hands 
for a moment or two on the place that is the seat of the 
increased sensibilit}-, and then placing them on some 
part below, and making passes downward. This attracts 
the influence imparted by the hand downward, and the 
pain with it. It is sometimes astonishing to the patient, 
how soon this apparently simple treatment will allay 
the most intense pain. In extremely acute pains, 
attended with a great degree of sensitiveness in the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 181 

parts, it may assist to relieve it to wet the hands in 
water containing a little sulphuric ether. As the inhal- 
ing of ether produces a general insensibility of the 
nerves of feeling, so its external application produces a 
corresponding local insensibility. It may sometimes be 
usefully employed as an auxiliary to the psychopathic 
treatment. 

Some troubles, which are usually treated by prrysi- 
cians of the regular school as local diseases, are most 
successfully managed hy restoring the general tone of 
the system. There are but few, if any, strictly local 
diseases. Owing to the action of the law of sympathy, 
which connects the organs in a harmonious whole, if one 
part suffers, all suffer more or less with it. This is one 
reason wiry the magnetic movement-cure, by imparting 
the vital principle itself, is so efficient in the cure of dis- 
ease. It is better calculated than any known remedial 
agency to restore the system to a vigorous tone, and 
thus remove all local morbid conditions. To im- 
prove the general health and vigor of the whole system 
is the best method of treating the diseases peculiar to 
the female organism, whose name is legion. They are 
usually what their own intuitions have so expressively 
named them, that is, " weaknesses." They result from 
a general loss of vital force, and the parts of the sys- 
tem which have a constitutional and hereditary tendency 
to debility and disease, are the first to be affected. It 
is evident that where this is the case, the remedy is to 
restore the general strength, which the S3'stem of Ling, 
in connection with Medical Psychology, is so well cal- 
culated to do. When the animal functions are generally 
healthy and performed with due vigor, local " weak- 
nesses" soon disappear. This is the most effectual 
remedy for the long list of female diseases, the various 



182 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

forms of prolapsus, leucorrhoea, or disturbances of tbe 
menstrual function, chlorosis, hysteria, polypus, and 
ovarian tumors. 

It should be the aim of the psychopathic physician, 
not only to cure a patient of his disease, and to afford 
him a temporary relief, — for this is only half his work, 
— but to show him how to keep well, and to give per- 
manency to his recovery. Many otherwise efficient prac- 
titioners of the system fail precisely here. It is equally 
true also of physicians of all schools. The patient must 
be put upon the royal road of obedience to the laws of 
life and health. The practice of general hygiene must 
be insisted upon. His die! must be regulated according 
to the necessities of t ho case, lie must have exert 
or rest, as the peculiarities of the case may demand, 
deep breathing, pure air, proper attention to bathing 
and cleanliness, and be regular in all his habits. It is 
of little use to cure a patient of disease, and leave the 
causes of the morbid state in full operation. These 
must be eradicated, in order that the cure may be per- 
manent. If this is not attended to. the patient will fall 
from grace, and his backsliding may bring the thera- 
peutic influence of mental medicine into disgrace. 

There are no two systems of curing disease which 
w r ork better together than Medical Psychology and the 
Swedish Movement Cure. They are twin sisters, and 
mutually aid each other. Each borrows efficiency from 
the other. Every one who uses the first as a curative 
agency in the treatment of chronic diseases will do well 
to acquaint himself with the system of Ling, and the 
principles of the Movement Cure, as unfolded in the 
work of Dr. Taylor on the subject. This will be far 
better than dabbling with medicines of any kind. He 
should thoroughly study also the science of vital mag- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 183 

netisrn. One can gain a competent knowledge of the 
literature of the subject, by perusing the works of De- 
lcutze, Gregory, Cahagnet, Townsend, the recent excel- 
lent work of Dr. Fahuestock on " Artificial Somnam- 
bulism," and the previous work of the author of this, 
entitled the " Mental Cure," describing the mental aspect 
of health and disease and the psychological method of 
treatment. We should seek for light from every source, 
— books, conversation, our own intuitions, and com- 
munication with the general sphere of intelligence 
above. 

The remedy for disease is often extremely simple, and 
its efficiencj' consists in its being the right thing, in the 
right place. An illustrative case will render this plain. 
Some years ago, I received a telegram urging me to go, 
by the next train, to a neighboring town, to attend a 
man dangerously sick. He had been suffering for ten 
days from gastric inflammation. Everything swallowed 
was instantly ejected from the stomach, even a spoonful 
of water. His condition was an extremely critical one. 
I perceived, by an examination of the case, that the 
pneumogastric nerve was inflamed and congested. This 
was the root of the trouble. The remed} r was also sug- 
gested. An application of cloths wet in warm water, 
and pressed upon the back of the neck with the hand, 
and changed at brief intervals, relieved him in ten min- 
utes. The inverted action of the stomach and bowels 
was changed at once, and the cure was effected. Only a 
general weakness remained, from which he soon rallied. 
30 simple a remed}', a man was raised from the verge 
of dissolution, in a few minutes, to health. The cure was 
effected in the presence, and with the approval, of a 
Professor of the Dartmouth Medical College. Many 
other cases might be given illustrating the £ame point, 



184 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

— the simplicity and efficiency of the right thing, in the 
right time and place. There is an inseparable connec- 
tion between the cause of a diseased condition and the 
morbid effects. A radical ,cure implies the removal of 
the producing cause. 

Is there any sure and reliable guide, which we may 
follow, in gaining a knowledge of the nature and cause 
of the morbid state of a patient, and the proper remedy? 
The gift and art of healing, by this method, is usually 
accompanied with the power, the instinctive facult3 r , of 
doing this. The practice of Medical Psychology for a 
short time seems to develop the intuitive perceptions 
of the physician, so that he I a glance, the dis- 

eased condition of a patient. He becomes more and 
more impressible, and sympathetically clairvoyant. 
This remarkable power is extremely accurate and reli- 
able in the diagnosis or detection of the location and 
peculiar symptoms of disease. It is adequate to a cor- 
rect diagnosis in every case, especially if there be with 
it an adequate knowledge of the anatomy and physiol- 
ogy of man, and the nature and symptoms of disease. 
Some clairvoyants, as they are called, are defective 
here. Their intuitive perceptions are acute and clear, 
and they can locate a pain or a diseased action, but 
know not even the name of the organ to which it 
belongs, or the disease of which it is symptomatic. 
There are some physicians of the regular school, who 
have gained great celebrity in the skilful diagnosis of 
disease, who do it in this way, and yet while they 
secretly practise s}^mpathetic clairvoyance or psychome- 
try themselves, are often too ready to ridicule it in 
others. Many have owned to me that they detect the 
state of a patient in this way more than by the ordi- 
nary mode of examining the pulse, the tongue, and the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 185 

character of the excretions. The first step toward a 
cure is a correct diagnosis of the disease. To gain an 
accurate knowledge of the morbid state is half of its 
cure. Many a person has been doctored into the grave- 
yard, by treating him for a disease he never had, and 
thus administering to him the wrong medicines. The • 
blindness of the physician has quenched the light of 
life in the patient. Psychometry is of inestimable 
value in enabling the physician to ascertain the exact 
state of health of an individual, and in forming a correct 
judgment as to the origin, cause, nature, location, and 
present progress, of the most complicated and obscure 
diseases. When aided by medical science, it is a well- 
nigh unerring guide to a discriminating knowledge of 
ase, and the peculiarities of each individual case. 
We cannot over-estimate the importance and worth of 
this peculiar interior perception, with its delicate sensi- 
tiveness to the least diseased action in another person, 
its indescribable inward discernment of the hidden 
cause, and its intuitive flash of light as to the proper 
mode of removing it. This sensitiveness to the state of 
another may be compared to a delicate differential ther- 
mometer. The slightest changes of temperature, which 
our ordinary sensations are inadequate to perceive y are 
indicated by it at once. But sympathetic clairvoyance 
is not only an immediate response of our system to the 
feelings of another, but is also an acute perceptivity. 
It sees as well as feels. It is a spiritual light, a ray of 
a higher sun, and the development and disclosure of a 
hidden power of human nature, which does not ordina- 
rily come to freedom and conscious activity- in this first 
stage of our existence. It sympathetically feels the 
disease of the patient, and sees the cause, near or 



186 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

remote, and suggests by an intuitive flash the right 
thing to be done. 

Interior perception, as Swedenborg denominates it, 
is a spiritual gift, in its highest forms of manifestation. 
I mean, by this, that a spiritual influence develops the 
dormant and latent power in human nature, and unveils 
senses that are suppressed by the fleshly covering. 
What is ordinarily called clairvoyance is only an im- 
perfect imitation. Mid sometimes a bungling counterfeit 
of it. It is the concomitant of the "gift of healing," 
Among the chart of the spirit, enumerated 

by Paul, are mentioned the word of wisdom and of 
knowledge, or an exaltation of the intellectual pov. 
to an extraordinary range of action, and the discerning 
or seeing of spirits. If this latter gift be interpreted to 
mean the intuitive reading of oharacter, if implies noth- 
ing less than perception ; for to read the 
of men, their past history, and present character, is one 
of its common functions. If it means, as it naturally 
does, the power to see spirits, then it certainly is an 
interior perceptivity that is indicated. The detection 
of disease by a glance, the intuitive reading of thought 
and character, and the vision of spiritual beings and 
things, are elfccted by the same power. The distinction 
is in its different range of action. The power of intui- 
tive perception, which is innate in human nature, and 
belongs to its essence as one of the properties of our 
inner being, is unfolded and stimulated to activity by 
spiritual influences. The practice of Medical Psychol- 
ogy operates in the same way, and aids its development. 
The practitioner becomes more and more impressible. 
This facilitates communication with the higher realms. 
Impression, or thought-speaking, is the most desirable 
form of reciprocal converse and intercourse with the 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 187 

other world. He who is sympathetically impressible 
lives in speaking distance of another and better range 
of life, and its more exalted intelligences. By light 
borrowed from the living effulgence of that realm he 
will see the nature and cause of a diseased condition, 
both in its mental and physical aspects, and have an 
indefinable perception, intuition, or impression of the 
right thing to be done. The future science o£ the world 
will appreciate the worth of this wonderful gift, and 
educate and direct it to its proper sphere of use. It can 
be made to search out the hidden haunts of disease in 
the human S} T stem, or to explore the secrets of the 
worlds of space, or to disclose the sublime mysteries of 
another life, lift from it the veil of darkness, and dem- 
onstrate to the doubting, hesitating faith of the world 
the truth of immortality. 

THERE IS NO DEATH. 

11 There is no Death ! The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore ; 
And bright in Heaven's jewelled crown 
They shine for evermore. 

14 There is no Death ! The dust we tread 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 
To golden grain or mellow fruit 
Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 

11 The granite rocks disorganize 

To feed the hungry moss they bear : 
The forest leaves drink daily life 
From out the viewless air. 

" There is no Death ! The leaves may fall, 
The flowers may fade and pass away — 
They only wait through wintry hours 
The coming of the May. 



188 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

44 There is no Death ! An angel form 

Walks o'er the earth with silent tread, 
He hears our hcst loved things away, 
And then we call them — Dead. 

14 He leaves our hearts all desolate — 

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers; 
Transplanted into bliss, they now 
Adorn Immortal bowers. 

44 The bird-like voice whose joyous tones 
Made glad this scene of sin and strife, 
Sings now in everlasting song 
Amid the Tree of Lift ! 

44 And where lie sees a smile too bright, 
Or hearts too pure for taint and \ 
He bears it to that world of light 

To dwell in Paradise. 

11 Born into that undying life 

They leave us but to come again; 
With joy we welcome them — the same 
Except in sin and pain. 

11 And ever near us, though unseen, 
The dear immortal spirits tread; 
For all the boundless universe 
Is Life — There are no Dead 1 " 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 189 



CHAPTER XXII. 

INSANITY AND ITS PSYCHOPATHIC TREATMENT. 

Different Forms of Insanity — Its Leading Characteristic — 
Analogy to Dreaming — Mental Condition in Dreams — In- 
sanity and Somnambulism — Resemblance of the two States — 
Cerebral Condition — Mental Exaltation — Want of Recollec- 
tion — Influence of the Bodily Organs — Delirium and Night- 
mare — Causes of Insanity — Not a Bodily Disease — Loss of 
Magnetic and Cerebral Harmony — Magnetic Exhaustion — 
Vampirism — Morbid Odyllic and Magnetic Sensitiveness — 
Obsession — Remarks of Dr. Abercrombie — Insanity a Peculiar 
Magnetic State — Adaptation of the Psychopathic Treatment to 
its Cure — Influence of Kindness. 

THE peculiar mental and cerebral condition that goes 
under the general name of insanity exists in differ- 
ent degrees, and assumes various forms. When the 
deviation from the sound mental status and the diver- 
gence from the usual normal manifestations of mental 
action are only slight, it is called eccentricity. This is 
the lowest degree of an unbalanced or abnormal mental 
state, and is of more frequent occurrence than the higher 
forms of mental inharmony, which are denominated 
insanity. Where the hallucination is confined to one 
subject, and on all others the patient exhibits no devia- 
tion from the ordinary condition of a sound mind, it is 
called monomania. When the controlling false impres- 
sions or ideas are of a depressing character, it constitutes 
the abnormal mental state known as melancholia. This 



190 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

is often attended with a tendency or impulse to self- 
destruction. Where the ruling ideas are of a more 
exalted character, it is mania or madness. In this form 
of mental disease the lower passions and propensities 
sometimes break loose from all voluntary restraint. 

The grand characteristic of insanity is the partial or 
complete loss of voluntary control of the thoughts, emo- 
tions and activities of the subject of it. It has been 
long ago observed by writers on insanity, that there 18 a 
remarkable analogy between the phenomena exhibited 
by it and those of dreaming and somnambulism. This 
is so obvious a fact as to force itself upon the attention 
of the most superficial r, and yet is a truth of 

fundamental importance in deciding upon the best 
method of treatment, or that which from its adaptation 
to the nature of the disease promises the most certain 
curative results. The leading characteristics of both 
states are the same. Dr. Holland (Mental Plnjsiology, 
p. 110) remarks, " A dream put into action (as in reality 
it is : under certain conditions of somnambulism) might 
become madness in one or other of its most frequent 
forms; and, conversely, insanity may often, with fitness, 
be called a waking and active dream.' 1 In dreaming, the 
peculiar condition of the mind may be expressed by two 
facts of consciousness : — 

1. The impressions which arise in the mind and the 
images which float before the mental vision are believed 
to have a real and present existence ; and this belief is 
not corrected, as in the waking state, by comparing the 
conception with the things of the external world. The 
subjective states of the mind have a predominating influ- 
ence, while in our ordinary waking state the outward 
senses control our judgment and action. 

2. The ideas or images in the mind follow one another 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 191 

according to the law of association, over which we have 
no control, and cannot, as in the waking state, vary the 
scries or change it at will. In all forms of insanity and 
the numerous modifications of mental disease, we shall 
these characteristics of dreaming exhibited in a 
higher or lower degree. The higher forms of mania are 
a sort of dream from which the patient does not awake. 
To illustrate the remarkable analogy between dreaming 
and insanity, Dr. Abercrombie mentions the case of a 
maniac who had been for some time under the care of 
the celebrated Dr. Gregor} T , and entirely recovered. For 
a week after his recovery he was harassed during his 
dreams b} r the same rapid and tumultuous thoughts and 
the same violent passions by which he had been agitated 
during the period of his insanity. This is by no means 
a solitary fact, but is of frequent occurrence, and speaks 
volumes as to the true nature of insanity. 

In a work on the Identity of Dreaming with Insan- 
ity, M. Moreau, of Tours, remarks : " There are many 
insane persons who trace their delirious ideas, or con- 
victions, or hallucinations, to a dream. With many, 
insanity is in reality but the continuation of the dream. 
In confirmed insanity the dreams have effected such 
profound impressions upon the organism that they can- 
not be effaced by the waking condition. The impres- 
sions of dreams are sometimes so vivid that we find it 
difficult to divest ourselves of the idea of their reality. 
This is certainly a moment of insanity. In order that 
the insanity shall continue, we have only to imagine 
that the fibres of the brain have suffered too violent a 
shock to have recovered themselves. The same thing 
may occur more slowly." 

mnarabulism, whether it occur spontaneously, or be 
artificially induced by magnetism, exhibits a still do 



192 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

relationship and analog} 7 to insanity. There is the same 
absence of voluntary control over the thoughts and feel- 
ings as in ordinary dreaming, and the same predomi- 
nating influence of the subjective states of the mind over 
the outward senses. It differs from dreaming by the 
bodily organs being more under the control of the will, 
so that the subject sometimes converses freely on the 
ideas that occupy his mind, walks about, and even 
engages in manual labor. In somnambulism, which is a 
peculiar magnetic condition, the cerebrum, the organ of 
voluntary thought and life, is quiescent, and the patient 
lives and acts from tlic cerebellum, the organ of involun- 
tary thought and activity. There arc many insane per- 
sons in whom this cerebral condition is quite manifest, 
the forebrain being abnormally cold, as it is in long-con- 
tinued sleep. This negative condition of the cerebrum, 
at least the anterior portion of it, will be found on 
investigation to be a quite uniform accompaniment of 
insanity. 

There are many other facts which go to prove the 
analogy of insanity to somnambulism, if not the perfect 
identity of the two states. In somnambulism and 
dreaming there is often witnessed a great exaltation of 
the intellectual powers. The mind is elevated to a 
higher plane of activity, so that they perform de- 
beyond their usual powers, and comprehend subjects 
beyond their ordinary grasp. This is true of insanity. 
The thoughts and feelings are often acute and intense, 
far be} T ond the normal state of the same persons. They 
are often more or less clairvoyant. Many cases of this 
have come under my observation. They sometimes see 
and even hear things transpiring at a distance, and the 
objects and persons of another and higher world are not 
unfrequently unveiled to their inner vision. How closely 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 193 

this resembles the phenomena of the magnetic state, no 
one can fail to perceive. 

On coming out of the magnetic condition called som- 
nambulism, and of ordinary dreaming, there is usually 
an entire forgetfulness of all that has occurred in that 
state, or only a vague recollection of it. How true this 
is of the higher degrees of mania, I need not point out 
to any one in the least degree acquainted with the sub- 
ject. Persons subject to periodical attacks of insanity, 
on recovering have no recollection of what took place 
while in that state, but distinctly remember all that 
transpired when under the influence of a subsequent 
attack. In this respect the two states of somnambulism 
and insanity come together. I have seen persons in the 
magnetic sleep, who, if it had been found impossible to 
wake them up, and they had remained in it for any con- 
siderable length of time, would have been deemed 
proper candidates for an insane asylum, when they were 
in no proper sense insane at all. They were only in 
another, and perhaps higher mental condition, the laws 
of which are not fully and generally understood. There 
can be little doubt that our asylums are crowded with 
persons in a similar state, and who by a judicious psy- 
chopathic or magnetic treatment might be restored to a 
normal intellectual condition. 

Dreams are often greatly influenced if not occasioned 
by the condition of the bodily organs. The same is true 
of the hallucinations of insanity. The monomania of 
De Quincey, which consisted in the impression that he 
carried a hippopotamus in his stomach, probably arose 
from the peculiar condition of that organ resulting from 
opium-eating. The violent ravings of maniacs, and their 
ungovernable propensity to destroy everything within 
their reach, is attended with an inflamed and over-sensi- 
17 



194 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

tive state of the raucous surface of the stomach and 
duodenum. The peculiar condition of the uterine 
organs that underlies the pleasing visions and beautiful 
waking dreams of some forms of hysteria, without 
doubt, gives character to the condition of many insane 
patients. Between the fearful visions of delirium tre- 
mens and nightmare there is a close analogy, and both 
are due to the condition of the digestive organs. In 
delirium tremens the fore-brain is often cold, while the 
part of the cerebrum in sympathetic connection with the 
stomach and bowels, and which is in close proximity 
to the organ of cautiousness, is much inflamed and con- 
gested. The phenomena of dreaming and the mental 
manifestations in somnambulism receive direction from, 
and bear the stamp of, the dominant propensities and 
characteristics of the individual. These frequently con- 
stitute the basis of the disordered mental manifestations 
of the insane. I need not trace further the analogy 
between insanity and the somnambulic state. The fact 
of their analogy or identity, if once established, must 
be the foundation on which to erect a more rational and 
efficient theory for the treatment of this unfortunate 
class. 

The causes of insanity are various. Attempts have 
long been made to refer it to bodily disease, but this is 
seldom satisfactoiy, as there are many cases where the 
various bodily organs are but slightly disturbed, not 
more so than in people in general who are not insane. 
I do not deny that disease of the body is often associ- 
ated with it. Constipation of the bowels is a uniform 
attendant of it, especially of melancholia. There is 
often a change in the relative proportion of the various 
chemical constituents of the bod} T , as an excess of phos- 
phorus in the brain. The frontal sinus may be found 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 195 

partially closed or contracted. The excreting organs, as 
the skin, the liver, and the kidneys, may be obstructed 
in their functional action, and the spleen enlarged. 
Bat whether the pathological condition is to be viewed 
■ause or effect is an open question. It may be only 
the resultant of the antecedent mental disturbance and 
inharmony. Certain it is that the treatment of insan- 
ity as if it were only a bodilv or even a cerebral disease 
has been attended with unsatisfactory results. The 
whole subject of insanity and the current methods of 
treating it need overhauling, and more rational theories 
and modes of cure adopted. The world demands it, 
and is prepared for it. 

Insanity is often a loss of magnetic harmony in the 
brain and nervous s}'stem. It is an uncentred mental 
state and a corresponding unbalanced cerebral condition, 
portions of the cerebral mass being negative and devital- 
ized, while other parts are positive and crowded with 
blood and nerve force. Where there is this inharmony 
in the vital forces of the brain, and their unequal dis- 
tribution, nothing can be so well adapted to its cure as 
the psychopathic treatment. This is a specific for all 
cerebral disturbance. It acts directly upon the brain 
and nerve tissue, which seem to have an affinity for it, 
while other remedial agents affect the brain only by a 
reflex action. No organ in the body can be so readily 
and quickly affected, and its vital movements so easily 
controlled by the psychological force, as the brain. 

Insanity seems to arise oftentimes from a loss of mag- 
netic life. The nervous force has been exhausted by 
sexual intemperance and other depleting abases, or, what 
frequently happens, the magnetic and psychic force of 
the patient has been a I I and unconsciously ap- 

propriated by some one or more other individuals. lie 



196 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

has been robbed of the subtle vital magnetic element in 
his organism by a species of human vampirism. It, is a 
singular fact that patients often have an intuitive con- 
sciousness of this, and complain of it as the underlying 
cause of their trouble. This will not be deemed wholly 
imaginary by any one familiar with the phenomena and 
laws of the magnetic agent, which sustains so impor- 
tant a relation to the vital force of the brain and the 
general organic structure. It is a more frequent ant< 
dent and attendant of insanity than many are aware of 
who have not investigated the subject. Where it is 
manifestly the case, and a state of magnetic exhaustion, 
resulting from excess, the reaction from long-continued 
over-excitement or vampirism, the remedy unerringly 
indicated is to impart the needed magnetic life. This, 
especially in the incipient stages of mental disease aris- 
ing from the above-named causes, will effect a cure in a 
brief period of time. 

Insane persons are almost invariably extremely sensi- 
tive to odyllic and magnetic impressions and to all p 
chological influences. This is owing to the morbid 
acuteness of the nerves of sensibility. They are afltec 
by the subtle nerve atmosphere of others, and the 
emanating sphere of persons and things produces p 
chometric effects upon them far more than in the normal 
state. This confirms the theory of the identity of insan- 
ity with the magnetic state. All this is true of the con- 
scious and unconscious magnetic sleep. The rays of (he 
moon, which Reichenbach proved to be highly charged 
with a positive odyllic force, affect the insane, as also 
persons in the somnambulic trance. Hence the word 
lunacy from luna, the moon, as a S3*nonyra of insanity. 
This over-sensitiveness to these invisible and imponder- 
able agents and forces of nature is a characteristic of 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 197 

their abnormal mental state, but one which adapts them 
to the psychopathic treatment. A distinguished writer 
on the subject has affirmed, that in many patients the 
chief symptom is so intense a degree of odyllic and 
magnetic sensitiveness, that the impressions made on the 
sensorium by these subtle effluvia and forces are so vivid 
as to overpower those derived through the medium of 
the outward senses. This is true of the higher degrees 
of the magnetic state, and points to the therapeutic 
effects of magnetism as the sovereign remedy. 

Owing to this general characteristic of insanity,* it 
seems many times to be caused, or at least prolonged, 
an uncongenial psychological influence which has 
taken possession of the unhappy subject and holds him 
in an unwilling bondage. These cases bear a striking 
resemblance to the obsessions mentioned in the Gospel 
narratives. The analogy between them has been ob- 
served by many in every subsequent century. The 
patient is often conscious of this disorder!}- psychological 
or spiritual influence which controls him. I have met 
with several cases of the kind, — one, a lady of fifty 
years of age, who recovered in a week's time, on break- 
ing this mysterious and potent influence, whether 
imaginary or real, by magnetism. On this subject 
Dr. Abercrombie remarks : - There seems reason to 
believe that the hallucinations of the insane are often 
influenced by a certain sense of the new and singular 
state in which iheir mental powers really are, and a 
certain feeling, though confused and ill-defined, of the 
loss of that power over their mental processes which 
they <.d when in health. To a feeling of this kind 

I am dis] > refer the impres common among 

the insane, of being under the influence 
natural power. Th represent \\ ftfi the 



198 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

working of an evil spirit, and sometimes as witchcraft. 
Very often they describe it as a mysterious and undue 
influence which some individual has obtained over them, 
and this influence they often represent as being carried 
on by means of electricity, galvanism, or magnetism." 

This I doubt not is far from being altogether unreal 
or the workings of imagination. But whether real or 
only a disordered fancy, it is only a better and stronger 
ps3 r chological influence, brought to bear upon the c: 
that can cure it. This in ninety-nine cases in a hundred 
will succeed after all other means have failed. When 
the true nature of insanity ifl better understood, the 
means of cure, now blindly practised, will be abandoned, 
and other agencies employed scientifically certain in 
their beneficial results, it is remarked by Dr. Gregory, 
that, " Many insane persona appear, when we study the 
symptoms as they are described by writers on the sub- 
ject, to be, in fact, only in a peculiar magnet l. I 
mean, they have a consciousness distinct from their 
ordinary consciousness, just as happens in the magnetic 
sleep." 11' this be true, and there can be little doubt of 
its substantial correctness, it is reasonable to sup] 
that they might be cured, or, in other words, restored to 
their ordinary consciousness, by a judicious psychopathic 
treatment. Drug medication would not be a proper 
method of bringing a person out of the somnambulic 
state or magnetic sleep. There would be danger by 
such a course of making the case worse. An intelligent 
practitioner of Medical Ps}'chology finds no difficulty in 
doing it. In case of insanity, the patient should be put 
either into the conscious impressible state or the uncon- 
scious sleep. This will usually be easily effected, owing 
to their more than ordinary susceptible condition. 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 199 

When accomplished, you have complete control over all 
their disordered mental manifestations and physical 
symptoms. We hope the time is not far distant when 
this agenc} r will be tested, under conditions favorable to 
its success, and on a scale commensurate with its impor- 
tance. Public attention is already turned in that 
direction, and this will ultimate in the supply of so man- 
ifest a desideratum. Insanity is often only a state of 
mental alienation ; that is, some influence foreign to the 
individual has taken possession in a greater or less 
degree of the patient. In all such cases, owing to the 
uncongenial and inharmonious nature of the dominating 
influence, there is more or less spiritual and mental dis- 
turbance. In the myriads of cases of this kind, let the 
disorderly control be supplanted and transferred to the 
hands of a sympathetic friendship. 

INFLUENCE OF KINDNESS. 

" How softly on the bruisSd heart 

A word of kindness falls, 
And to the dry and parched soul 

The moistening tear-drop calls. 
Oh ! if they knew who walked the earth 

'Mid sorrow, grief and pain, 
The power a word of kindness hath, 

'Twere paradise again. 

" The weakest and the poorest may 

The simple pittance give, 
And bid adieu to withered hearts, 

Return again and live. 
Oh ! what is life if love be lost? 

If man's unkind to man, 
Oh, what the heaven that waits beyond 

This brief and mortal span ! 



200 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" As stars upon the tranquil sea 

In mimic glory shine, 
So words of kindness in the heart 

Reflect the source divine. 
Oh! then be kind, whoe'er thou art 

That breathest mortal breath, 
And it shall brighten all thy life, 

And sweeten even death." 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 201 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

REMEDIES PARTLY MECHANICAL, PARTLY PSY- 
CHOPATHIC. 

Cure of Epistaxis — Pressure of the Femoral Artery — Com- 
pression of the Carotids — Cure of Headache — Dizziness — 
Apoplexy — Epilepsy — Hysteria — Compression of the Vagus 
Nerve — Its Influence upon the Various Organs — Cure of 
Nausea — Gastric Inflammation — Sea- Sickness — Laryngitis 
— Bronchitis — Diphtheria and Croup — Relief of Nervous 
Excitement — Testimony of Dr. Wetter — When to Use Vagal 
Pressure — How we Learn. 

THERE are some remedial processes of a simple char- 
acter, which produce immediate effects, that act 
mechanically rather than magnetically. Take, as an 
illustration, the common-sense cure of epistaxis, or bleed- 
ing v from the nose. In certain cases, as in full-blooded 
persons, and those subject to dizziness and headache 
from an excess of blood in the brain, bleeding from the 
nose may be a salutary relief, and a preventive of 
apoplexy, and ought not to be checked too hastity. In 
other cases, when long continued and excessive, it 
requires instant attention. There is a small artery, 
called the facial artery, branching off from the great 
carotid in the neck, which supplies the face and nostrils 
with blood. It passes outside the lower jaw, about an 
inch from the angle, where in a slight depression it may 
be found. Place the finger firmly on the right facial 
artery, if the bleeding is from the right nostril, and on 
the left facial artery, if the bleeding is from that side 



202 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

of the nostril, and press it tightly against the bone for 
five minutes. This shuts off the supply of blood to the 
affected parts. In a few minutes the ruptured vessels 
in the nose will contract and the blood in them coagulate, 
and the cure is effected. This is much better than the 
application of the various styptics to the parts. 

In case of painful inflammations in the lower limbs, 
pressure upon the femoral artery and the nerve accom- 
panying it will diminish the supply of blood to the 
affected part, and lessen its sensibility, and thus afford 
relief. The effects of pressure upon the large carotid 
artery on each side of the neck were known to physi- 
cians in the remotest ages. Caspar Hoffman states 
" that the Assyrians were in the habit of tying the 
veins of the neck so as to cause insensibility while 
performing circumcision upon adults. Aristotle also 
refers to this mode of producing insensibility. Scrapion 
also mentions the influence of pressure upon the vessel 
of the neck for the relief of headache. For all derange- 
ments originating in an excess of Mood in the brain, as 
headache, dizziness, apoplexy, hysteria, epilepsy, and 
various nervous disorders, it would seem to be the 
natural method of relief, to diminish the supply of blood 
to the brain, by compression of the carotid artery, while 
the jugular vein which carries off the blood from the 
head is left unobstructed. This artery may be found 
just back of the angle of the lower maxillary bone. 
The pressure need not be carried to the extent of caus- 
ing insensibility or swooning, but only so far as to 
lessen rather than suspend entirely the flow of blood to 
the brain. In this way the restlessness of nervous 
patients, and their habitual wakefulness, may be relieved, 
and sleep induced, when the trouble originates in a 
determination of blood to the head. In all these cases 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 203 

nothing would seem to be more simple or efficient. I 
have tried it for many years. Dr. Parry, of Bath, Eng- 
land, called the attention of the medical world many 
years ago to the practical value of compression of the 
carotids for the relief of violent headache, epilepsy, 
hysteria, and other disorders. 

Much of the effect attributed to compression of the 
vessels of the neck is. now found to be due to the 
pressure of the vagus or pneumogastric nerve. This, as 
we have before shown, is one of the most important and 
widely distributed of the cranial nerves. The pulsations 
of the carotid artery are the best guide in finding it, as 
it is in immediate proximity to it, so that when the 
finger is placed on the artery it involves the nerve in 
the pressure. The slightest pressure upon the brain, 
when a portion of the cranium has been removed, causes 
insensibility. The compression of a nerve diminishes 
the sensitiveness and lessens the vital action of the 
part or parts to which it is distributed. The vagus 
nerve sends branches to the heart, the lungs, the stom- 
ach, and other internal organs, and is both a nerve of 
sense and motion. Compression of this nerve can be 
made to affect the action of the heart, and arrest palpi- 
tation. In all cases where you wish to diminish the 
action of the heart, you can do it in this way far better 
and more safely than by the administration of veratrum. 
You can affect also the action of the diaphragm and 
lungs, and change the respiration. These are two im- 
portant points in the treatment of inflammatory dis- 
eases. 

For the relief of nausea and vomiting, and an over- 
sensitiveness of the gastric membranes, it has been 
found, by experience, that a better effect is produced 
by applying the lingers further down on each side where 



204 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

the carotid and nerve pass under the clavicle. This is 
an efficient remedy for sickness at the stomach and the 
incipient stages of cholera morbus. My experiments 
with It for ten years have confirmed me in the opinion 
of its reliability and certainty. Dr. Augustus Weller, 
of Geneva, in an article republished in the " Bowdoin 
Scientific Review/' states that he has, by compression of 
the vagus nerve, relieved himself, on several occasions, 
of Boa-sickness, to which distressing malady he is a 
martyr. It will be found a more reliable process of 
relief than the newly recommended chloral hydrate. 
We have here a remedy of great value, and one appli- 
cable to a large range of die 

The pnenmogastrie nerve descends from the medulla 
oblongata, where it has its origin near the part termed 
by Fleurens the "no ted Vital" the vital knot, the most 
vital part of the cerebral organism, the slightest punc- 
ture here being instantly fatal. Near its origin there 
exists a ganglion, and lower down there is another gan- 
glionic enlargement. Near this, it gives off the superior 
laryngeal nerve. In sore throat, laryngitis, and even 
bronchitis, compression of this part of the vagus nerve 
affords relief. Perhaps we have here a remedy for croup 
and diphtheria. But 1 have never tried it in these last- 
mentioned disorders. 

Dr. Weller speaks of the efficiency of vagal pressure 
in allaying nervous excitement and inducing sleep. He 
says : " It is particularly efficacious in cases where one 
pervading idea of an anno}ing nature occupies the mind, 
which cannot be dispelled, but is rather intensified, by 
any attempt to dispel it. Under such conditions the 
influence of vagal compression is most heroic. Even 
if sleep is not induced, if once we produce a sense of 
faintness, by vagal pressure, it seems to act as a sponge 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 205 

passed over writing on a slate, either removing this one 
ideal state, or bringing the intensified idea on a level 
with the others. I have repeatedly verified this effect on 
myself and other persons, by comparing the state of 
mind before and after vagal compression. ,, 

It seems to be a law, that pressure upon a nerve, by 
sundering the communication between the parts to which 
it ramifies and the sensorium, lessens the sensibility of 
those parts, and diminishes their vital action. Knowing 
when these effects are desirable in an organ, it will be 
easy to decide when to employ it. Pressure upon the 
branch of the trifacial nerve, which is distributed to the 
teeth and jaws, will relieve toothache. It produces tem- 
porarily, and in a less degree, the same effect as divid- 
ing the nerve. In cases of maniacal excitement, I have 
a strong conviction that vagal pressure, w T hich must of 
necessity include compression of the carotid artery, 
which supplies blood to the brain, would often be pro- 
ductive of the happiest results. It at least deserves a 
trial. Where there is in such patients an excess of 
blood in the brain, which is uniformly the case, vagal 
pressure will undoubtedly produce a quieting influence, 
much sooner than bromide of potassium and canabis 
indica, which, when given together, are found to be the 
best internal remedy. The things recommended in this 
chapter are to be used only as auxiliaries in the psycho- 
pathic treatment. Under the direction of skill and 
intelligence they will be found efficient remedies. 
There is much to be learned, which the medical science 
of the world does not and cannot teach, regarding the 
nature of disease, and the best method of controlling 
and regulating the organic forces of the human organ- 
ism. 



206 MENTAL MEDICINE, 

HOW WE LEARN. 

" Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth, 
Such as men give and take from day to day, 
Comes in the common walk of easy life, 
Blown by the careless wind across our way. 

11 Bought in the market, at the current price, 

Bred of the smile, the jest, perchance the bowl; 
It tells no tales of daring or of worth, 
Nor pierces even the surface of a soul. 

" Great truths are greatly won ; not found by chance, 
Nor wafted on the breath of Bummer dream; 

But grasped in the great Straggle of the soul, 
Hard-bufFeting with adverse wind and stream. 

11 Not in the general mart, 'mid corn and wine ; 
Not in the merchandise of gold and gems; 
Not in the world's gay hall of midnight mirth; 
Not 'mid the blaze of regal diadems ; 

11 But in the day of conflict, fear and grief, 

When the strong hand of God, put forth in might, 
Ploughs up the subsoil of the stagnant heart, 

And brings the imprisoned truth-seed to the light. 

" Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours 
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain, 
Truth springs, like harvest from the well-ploughed field, 
And the soul feelfl it has not wept in vain." 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 207 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MENTAL MEDICINE, OR THE SANATIVE VALUE OF 
THE PSYCHIC FORCE. 

Supreme Influence of the Mind — The Fundamental Maxim of 
Christ — Faith and its Influence — Secret of Success in the 
Psychopathic Treatment — Force of Suggestion — Apollonius 
of Tyana — Philosophy of the New Testament Miracles — The 
Medical System of Jesus — Dr. Quimby — How to Remove the 
Underlying Cause of Disease — The New Psychic Force — Its 
Sanative Value — Quotation from Dr. Nichols — Appropria- 
tion of New Discoveries — Human Progress — The New and 
Old. 

THE interior organism, which we call the mind or 
spirit, is the controlling element in our complex 
being, and the living, moving force of the body. The 
importance of the condition and influence of the 
inward man has been almost overlooked and ignored in 
all ages by the practitioners of the healing art. Jesus, 
the Christ, is the only physician who has ever given, 
theoretically and practically, due prominence to the 
spiritual side of human nature in the cure of disease. 
I know of no other who has done this, in the annals of 
mankind and the history of medicine. He aimed to 
restore first the disordered mind to health and harmony, 
and then through this the outward body. His funda- 
mental maxim was. that a man is saved by faith, soul, 
spirit and body. The oft-repeated formula, u Be it 
unto thee according to thy faith," is the key to his whole 
system of cure, and expresses an important law of our 



208 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

being. The world has never } T et comprehended the real 
relation of the law of faith to the preservation of health 
and the cure of diseases of mind and body. The science 
of magnetism has given us exhibitions of its wonderful 
power in controlling and affecting the bodily organs and 
their functional movements. 

The secret of success in curing disease by vital mag- 
netism and psychopathic remedies is found in the power 
of what has been denominated suggestion. We have 
shown, in a previous chapter of this work, that when a 
person is in the impressible conscious state, a simple 
suggestion from the operator is capable of controlling 
all the voluntary movements of the patient, and of influ- 
encing at once the physiological action of the various 
organs of the body. It produces these striking physio- 
logical effects, because in that condition the patient has 
faith, and unhesitatingly believes what is told him, and 
furnishes an illustration of the operation of the law of 
faith. Many chronic invalids are more or less in this 
susceptible condition. If they arc not so, they can be 
easily thrown into the state in which they are extremely 
sensitive to the action of psychological forces. This 
explains all that is mysterious in the cures wrought by 
Jesus, as they are narrated in the gospels. It explains 
and renders credible also the wonderful cures effected by 
Apollonius of Tyana, who was born about four years 
before the commencement of the Christian era, and who 
is affirmed to have cured the most dangerous diseases 
with what was deemed a miraculous power. The fol- 
lowers of Apollonius, the Neo-Platonic philosophers, 
placed his remarkable cures, which seem to have been 
well authenticated, as a counterbalance to the miracles 
of Christ. But all these wonders, so far as they are his- 
torically true, are explicable by the known laws of mag- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 209 

netism. They were accomplished in harmony with 
science and nature, but perhaps while ignorant in a good 
degree of the law hy which they were done. The force 
of suggestion over a patient in the conscious impressible 
state is the key that unlocks the whole mystery. It 
explains the miracles of Christ and those of Apollonius. 
It brings to light the hitherto occult force by which they 
were effected, and takes them out of the class of miracles 
by reducing them to the operation of natural law. Here 
is a principle, an arcane psychic force, worthy of patient 
study, and one which will repay persevering, honest 
investigation. Intelligent experimentation with it, will 
be rewarded by a rich harvest of established principles 
and results. It opens the secret chambers of knowledge 
as to the relation of the mind and its states to health 
and disease. 

There is profound philosophy underlying the cures 
effected by Christ, and a distinct school of medicine may 
be erected upon it. One of the marked characteristics 
of the system is the discarding of all drugs and chemical 
agencies, and the placing sole reliance on psychical 
forces and remedies. It recognizes the supreme con- 
trolling influence of the mind over the body, the inner 
over the outward man, both in health and disease. The 
body seems to have been viewed by him, not as the real 
selfhood, but as only the shadow of the soul, the inner 
life of man. It corresponds to or echoes the states and 
movements of the interior nature. Disease is not so 
much a mere physical derangement, in its primary prin- 
ciple, as it is an abnormal mental condition, an inhar- 
mony of the psychical element and force, — a wrong 
belief, a falsity. This fixed belief, that was viewed as the 
root of the morbid outward condition, is not a mere intel- 
lectual act, and has no reference to a creed, bat represents 
14 



210 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

an inward condition, the state of the inner man, what 
the German writers on the philosoplry of mind denomi- 
nate the interior consciousness. This is the governing 
element, the controlling principle. The bodily state is 
the index to it. u As a man thinketh in his heart, so is 
he." Disease being in its root a wrong belief, in the 
sense explained above change that belief, and we cure 
the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There 
is a law here the world will some time understand and 
use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The 
late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful 
healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the 
nature of disease, and by a long succession of most 
remarkable cun ed by psychopathic remedies, at 

the same time proved the truth of the theory and the 
efficienc}' of that mode of treatment. Had he lived in a 
remote age or country, the wonderful facts which 
occurred in his practice would have now been deemed 
either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce 
the wonders of the Gospel history. But all this was 
only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the 
action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impres- 
sible condition. 

But how can we change that fixed belief that condition 
of the interior consciousness, that underlies the state of 
disease? Here is the only practical difficulty in the cure 
of the disease. When the patient is in the impressible 
state, a positive faith in the physician by a psychological 
law, invariable in its action, is communicated to the 
subject, and, as it were, lifts him out of the fixed belief 
in which he was grounded into a new state. This 
mental energy and psychic force supplant the weakened 
power of the patient, to whom they are imparted as the 
controlling principle. A man's reputation as a success- 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 211 

ful healer may aid in the generation of this faith in a 
patient. We are saved by faith. This is not only a 
sound Scripture doctrine, but a settled law of human 
nature. Whatever assists in the generation and induc- 
tion of this faith has a sanative value. When the 
physician is under the influence of a strong, unyielding 
faith, it is communicated to the patient as readily as an 
extinguished lamp can be lighted from the flame of 
another. To change the mental statQ of an invalid nec- 
essarily modifies the condition of the bodily organs and 
the action of the vital force. 

There can be little doubt that the force which is at 
present attracting the attention of the scientific world, 
and which has been denominated the psychic force, can 
be turned to a useful account. This force, whatever its 
origin, is made to move ponderable bodies, and to play 
on musical instruments, without any visible agency ade- 
quate to produce such effects. It is sometimes sufficient 
to counteract the utmost power of a strong man. It is 
manifestly under the direction and control of intelli- 
gence. This property of the phenomena is as manifest 
as the visible effects themselves. This force, as mani- 
fested in the presence of the celebrated Mr. Home, has 
been investigated and experimented with by three men 
widely known to science, — William Crookes, F. R. S., 
editor of the " London Chemical News ; " Sergeant Cox, 
a distinguished member of the English bar ; and the cel- 
ebrated astronomer, Dr. Huggins. This force they have 
christened the psychic force. It is new only in the sense 
that the laws governing it have not hitherto been under- 
stood. It has been in the world from the beginning. It 
is now admitted that there is such an agency. This is 
as clear as any Tact of science, — as chemical affinity or 
gravitation. And when the laws to which it is subject, 



212 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

and the conditions under which it acts are fully under- 
stood, I firmly believe it can be made available for the 
relief of physical inharmonies, to an extent and with a 
success of which we scarcely dream at present. My 
own experiments with it, during the last two years, have 
served to confirm me in this opinion, though they have 
not been sufficiently extensive or numerous to enable me 
to state anything as settled with scientific certainty, but 
only to create the hope that there is an effectual sanative 
value in it, which awaits future development. Remark- 
able facts might be detailed, but are withheld for the 
present. It will probably operate by means that are in- 
visible, but with results that are tangible. The intelli- 
gent psychic force will act upon the human organism 
through certain intermediate and semi-spiritual princi- 
ples, as the nerve atmosphere or emanating sphere of 
certain persons, and the subtle effluvia of all bodies in 
nature, especially the magnetic and odyllic agenc 
The life of all material things, including the human 
organism, is spirit or psychic force. All force and all 
causation are immaterial, imponderable, and psychical, 
as much so as that which moves my hand in writing. 
There is a psychical or spiritual world discreetly distinct 
from this, but interfused within it. All the great powers 
of nature and all the outward phenomena of the material 
universe are resultants of the action of that world upon 
this. This is no new truth. According to Diogenes 
Laertius, Thales taught that " souls are the motive forces 
of the universe. " Empedocles (Carmina, v. 11-15), 
affirms that " spiritual forces move the visible world." 
Virgil asserts, mens agitat molem, mind animates and 
moves the world. The spiritual realm is the anil 
mundi, the soul of the universe. It is not unreasonable 
to believe that this grand psychical force, the general 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 213 

sphere of intelligence and life that animates all things, 
may be made available, under conditions that remain to 
be studied and discovered, for the cure of disease, and 
to affect the vital powers of the bodily organism. 

On the subject of the psychic force, Dr. Nichols, 
editor of the u Boston Journal of Chemistry/' remarks : 
k * Manifestly there arc invisible, imponderable agencies 
of great power in this world, other than those which 
modern science recognizes, and it is a source of no little 
annoyance and mortification that thus far we have failed 
to bring them within the field of scientific investigation. 
At present the whole matter is involved in doubt and 
perplexity, but we have faith to believe that a future age 
will solve the great mystery and roll away the dark 
clouds which obscure our vision." 

Sometimes a principle is known to science and recog- 
nized in the world before it is put to any useful employ- 
ment. This is true of the so-called psychic force. So 
the attraction of loadstone for iron was known long 
before the construction of that useful instrument, the 
mariner's compass. The action of chlorine on alcohol 
led to the discovery of a fragrant, volatile liquid, which 
for more than a score of years was a useless curiosity in 
the laboratory of the chemist. But in process of time, 
under the name of chloroform, it was found to produce, 
when inhaled, insensibility to pain in surgical operations. 
In the not distant future, more subtle and potent agencies, 
those that approach nearer the mysterious vital spark, will 
be employed in the cure of disease. Such is perhaps the 
psychic force. In the progress of the world and the refine- 
ment of mankind, spiritual and psychological agencies 
will be more employed as sanative agents, and the 
present gross and barbarous remedies will be discarded. 
It is the duty of the scientific physician to test the sana- 



214 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

tive virtue of all new discoveries in the realm of nature, 
and appropriate them to the relief of human suffering 
and the cure of mental and bodily disease, so that the 
practice of the healing art may keep even pace with the 
advancement of mankind. 

The soul of man is constructed ou the principle of 
progress, and human nature, by virtue of the divine and 
spiritual forces that act from within outward, is slowly 
but surely being unfolded to a loftier destination. As 
certainly as the germ of the acorn in a favoring soil and 
beneath a genial sky will become the sturdy oak, or 
the early dawn grow into the perfect day, BO the infant 
powers of the mind, and its latent, undeveloped faculties, 
shall some time expand into full angelhood. The germ 
of the divine life in man, which lies at the inmost centre 
of our being, will some time come to dominion, and have 
everything its own way in our inner and outer nature. 
Every noble thought, though buried beneath the dust of 
years gone by, shall have a resurrection to life again and 
be clothed with immortality. Every good de-ire is but 
a prophetic intimation of what shall be. Every bud of 
lofty aspiration shall blossom into flower and ripen into 
fruit. Our brightest hopes, our cherished expectations, 
though they may seem to be blasted, and to have gone 
down like a star in the darkened west, shall rise again 
in brightness in the east. They are foregleams of the 
coming reality, and all our dreams of future good are 
but a partly veiled prevision of blessings that shall be. 
The good we seem to have lost is not forever gone, but, 
like gems long buried in the earth, in some auspicious 
hour will come to light again with untarnished lustre 
and undiminished brightness. The blackest cloud that 
ever settled around us will pass away, and no longer 
veil the spiritual heavens in darkness, but through it 



MENTAL MEDICINE. 215 

shall break the sun of a higher sky. Our darkest night 
will end in dawn, and the dawn shall kindle into day. 
Let us cherish a boundless faith in the good time com- 
ing, and let hope for ourselves and the world be as a 
guiding star upon our life's troubled ocean. If around 
our bark the waves of sorrow break fierce and high, the 
voice of infinite Love shall rebuke their rage, and they 
shall sink like sobbing infants to their rest. While the 
storm lasts, inspired by hope and courage, put strength 
to the oar. The long-expected land is just ahead. We 
shall reach the port to-morrow. 

THE OLD AND NEW. 

11 Oh, sometimes gleams upon our sight, 
Through present wrong, the eternal right I 
And step by step, since time began, 
We see the steady gain of man. 

M That all of good the past has had 
Remains to make our own time glad, 
Our common daily life divine, 
And every land a Palestine. 

11 We lack but open eye and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here ; 
The still, small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood, the burning bush. 

"For still the new transcends the old, 
In signs and tokens manifold; 
Slaves rise up men ; the Olive waves 
With roots deep set in battle-graves. 

u Through the harsh noises of the day 
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear 
A light is breaking, calm and clear. 



216 MENTAL MEDICINE. 

" Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore ; 
God's love and blessing, then and there, 
Are now, and here, and everywhere. " 

Joun G. Whittieb. 



H I37. 83 >4 



1 



.V 7 ^'* V--V v-^-V 

■•vie- \. y.'&&\ **■> ••■ 









v ... <u 



V* *V ^ *V 






• • • * 46^ O. *• . 7 * ^ 

<*v **<^ ^^ •f^lfesSs^« fix** ***?§siK** 





*^<& 

























W 



./: 



V '.<•—: V> > .^->* 












I'l 1 tit TP n I ' i •■ j 



116 



01 

CO 
00 

CO 

en 

CO 
CO 



CO 

do 
o 

CO 
CO 



~ CD _ 

£ SI § 

2?' o" 5) I 

cd ca — ■ 



19 



20 



